THE SEAL OF URZANA OF MUṢAṢIR : INSCRIPTION AND LOCAL KINGSHIP

ill. 3

Neo-Assyrian cylinder seal from Nineveh, showing a four-winged figure grasping two ostriches by the neck. Lapis lazuli, 42 × 20 mm, 750–700 BC. Baghdad, Iraq Museum, IM 67880

(after Collon 2010, no. 53* ; drawing : Collon 2005, no. 350. Redrawn by R. Dan)

Two textual units occupy the space around the figures. The main Akkadian inscription extends across two framed panels and opens ‘Seal of Urzana, king of Muṣaṣir’. A shorter line, NA4.dLAMMA (aban lamassi), lies between the ostriches’ tails. Apart from these two lines, the rest of the inscription is difficult, especially its third line: translations as a ‘city of the raven’ or ‘an Urartian city’ remain contested (Collon 1994, 38 ; Radner 2012, 247 n. 33-34 ; Salvini 2018b, 122-123). Urzana’s name and royal title are much firmer than this disputed characterization of the city.

The short, central line can be rendered literally ‘stone of the protective deity’. Collon understands it as an amuletic designation rather than simply a mineral name ; Radner likewise stresses its protective sense, whereas the museum’s commentary also associates the phrase with the pink chalcedony of the cylinder (Collon 1994, 37 ; Radner 2012, 247 n. 33). That difference of emphasis need not decide the meaning of the figural scene. The lettering was cut directly on the stone and therefore appears reversed in a rolling. Collon treats this as consistent with contemporary practice ; Meijer calls it a mistake (Collon 1994, 37 ; Meijer 2017, 84). The reversal itself does not identify the cutter or establish a place of engraving.

The arrangement of the writing makes the seal’s personalization particularly visible. The lines occupy framed spaces beside the image, with a short formula compressed between the birds’ tails ; one line outgrew its original frame and a space in the lower panel remained empty. Collon judges the parts of the long text to have been cut by the same craftsman, probably at the same time, and finds no reason to assign the short line to a different cutter or occasion (Collon 1994, 38). Radner instead reconstructs the short formula as earlier than the ownership text (Radner 2012, 247). The available evidence does not fix the interval between these textual units, even if a pre-existing figured cylinder subsequently inscribed for Urzana is a persuasive reconstruction (Collon 1994, 38 ; Meijer 2017, 84).

Its movement to Urzana is no better documented. Collon proposed acquisition in Assyria ; Radner raised the possibility of an Assyrian royal gift, and Salvini subsequently entertained a similar explanation (Collon 1994, 38 ; Radner 2012, 247 ; Salvini 2018b, 120). None is demonstrable from the unprovenanced stone. We may distinguish a Neo-Assyrian artistic setting, circulation by an unknown route and inscription for the named king without treating these as securely dated episodes. No ancient impression of this cylinder is known ; its protective formula suggests an amuletic rather than an administrative purpose.

The title ‘king of Muṣaṣir’ has a precise counterpart in the bilingual inscriptions of Rusa I. The Urartian version calls Urzana king of Ardini, the Urartian name corresponding to Assyrian Muṣaṣir; the Assyrian version says that, after defeating and capturing him, Rusa placed him in his former position for the exercise of kingship (CTU A 10-5 Ro, 12’-20’). This is a royal account of political subordination, but it presupposes Urzana’s pre-existing local kingship. The city housed Ḫaldi’s sanctuary and came within Urartian influence; it was not simply an ordinary city of the Urartian state (Salvini 2018b, 123).

The Assyrian sack of Muṣaṣir in 714 BC provides a historical horizon, not an exact date for the seal’s first cutting. Its Assyrian style, possible prior circulation and local royal inscription were already recognized in earlier scholarship (Collon 1994, 37-39; Radner 2012, 247 ; Salvini 2018b, 120). Seen together, they show how an elite object could be adapted to name Urzana and display his kingship. That materially specific conjunction is what the surviving cylinder can establish; its original commission and route of transfer remain unknown, while routine administrative sealing with it is undocumented.

Bibliography

Collon, D. 1987, First Impressions. London.

¾ 1994, “Urzana of Musasir’s Seal”, in A. Çilingiroğlu and D.H. French (eds.), Anatolian Iron Ages 3 : The Proceedings of the Third Anatolian Iron Ages Colloquium Held at Van, 6–12 August 1990, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Monograph 16, Ankara, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, 37-40.

 2010, “Ostrich.” Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient Near East: An Iconographic Dictionary with Special Emphasis on First-Millennium BCE Palestine/Israel, electronic prepublication (revised 5 May 2010), 1-8.

https://www.religionswissenschaft.uzh.ch/idd/prepublications/e_idd_ostrich.pdf

Haas, V. 2008, “Notizen zu den Anfängen der Erforschung der altorientalischen Glyptik am Beispiel des Siegels des Urzana, des Königs von Muṣaṣir”, in D. Bonatz, R.M. Czichon and F.J. Kreppner (eds.), Fundstellen: Gesammelte Schriften zur Archäologie und Geschichte Altvorderasiens ad honorem Hartmut Kühne, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 371-380.

Kertai, D. n.d., “Koning Urzana’s Assyrische struisvogels”, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, online exhibition.

https://www.rmo.nl/tentoonstellingen/web-exposities/koning-urzanas-assyrische-struisvogels/ (accessed 23 September 2026).

Meijer, D.J.W. 2017, “An Important Collection of Mesopotamian Cylinder Seals”, in B.J.L. van den Bercken and V.C.P. Baan (eds.), Engraved Gems : From Antiquity to the Present, Papers on Archaeology of the Leiden Museum of Antiquities 14, Leiden, Sidestone Press, 75-84.

Radner, K. 2012, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place : Muṣaṣir, Kumme, Ukku and Subria – The Buffer States between Assyria and Urartu”, in S. Kroll, C. Gruber, U. Hellwag, M. Roaf and P. Zimansky (eds.), Biainili-Urartu, Proceedings of the Symposium Held in Munich 12–14 October 2007, Acta Iranica 51, 243-264. Leuven, Peeters.

Rijksmuseum van Oudheden. n.d. “Cilinderzegel van Urzana, koning van Musasir”, Collection record, GS-30148.

https://www.rmo.nl/collectie/topstukken/rolzegel-demon-met-4-vleugels-tussen-twee-struisvogels-inscriptie/ (accessed 23 September 2026).

Salvini, M. 2018a. Corpus dei testi urartei, vol. V. Revisione delle epigrafi e nuovi testi su pietra e roccia (CTU A). Dizionario urarteo. Schizzo grammaticale della lingua urartea. Paris, Éditions de Boccard.

¾ 2018b. “La cité sainte de Muṣaṣir dans les sources écrites”, Études Mésopotamiennes – Mesopotamian Studies 1, 120-134.

Wartke, R.-B. 1993. Urartu. Das Reich am Ararat, Mainz am Rhein, Philipp von Zabern.

The cylinder seal of Urzana, king of Muṣaṣir, survives without an archaeological findspot. Now in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden (GS-30148), it is a pink chalcedony cylinder 48.5 mm high and 22 mm in diameter (ill. 1). The museum dates it to about 715 BC, a useful historical attribution rather than a date established by excavation (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden n.d.). Its unusual value lies in the combination of a finely cut image, a separate designation of the stone and an inscription naming a local king. Its documented modern history reaches at least to Dorow’s publication in 1820 and his sale of the cylinder to the Koninklijk Penningkabinet in 1825 (Haas 2008, 374-375).

ill. 1.

Cylinder seal of Urzana, king of Muṣaṣir, showing part of the engraved scene with a four-winged figure and an ostrich. Pink chalcedony. Leiden, Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, GS-30148. Photograph reproduced via Wikimedia Commons

ill. 2

Modern rolling of Urzana’s cylinder seal ; the composition repeats at the right. National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, GS-30148 (museum photograph, CC0)

In the published impression (ill. 2), a bearded, four-winged figure grasps two ostriches by their necks (Wartke 1993, Abb. 16). Their heads turn outwards, away from the figure, towards the inscription; a longer rolling repeats parts of the design. Grotefend had already observed the ostriches turning their heads away from the central figure (Haas 2008, 376). The figural scheme and its close Assyrian comparanda place the carving in a Neo-Assyrian glyptic tradition, although neither a Nineveh workshop (ill. 3) nor a particular maker can be established for this seal (Collon 1987, 86 ; Collon 1994, 37-38 ; Collon 2010, 2-3, catalogue nos. 53, 56). The central figure is conventionally called a genius. Neither it nor the birds can be identified more narrowly from this scene alone ; in Mesopotamia, combat imagery ostriches need not be understood as malevolent beings, but rather as formidable wild creatures, worthy opponent of heroic or royal figures (Collon 2010, 5).

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