Hittite Seals With Particular Reference To The Ashmolean Collection

Author : D. G. Hogarth
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781331900818
Total Pages : 124 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (8 download)

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Download or read book Hittite Seals written by D. G. Hogarth and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-20 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Hittite Seals: With Particular Reference to the Ashmolean Collection Glyptic objects, which are classed in Museums as Syro-Cappadocian or Hittite, have not received the attention due to the variety and interest of their engraved subjects and to their obvious utility for dating other remains. No serious study of the Hittite glyptic family in its archaeological relations has yet been published. Indeed only a few of its members can be said to have been made at all generally known, namely, roller-seals or cylinders of the developed Hittite period together with a few stamp-seals of exceptionally obvious interest which belong to the same comparatively late date. Even these have been treated with an eye almost solely to the interpretation of the scenes engraved upon them without any attempt being made to assign them to particular periods or localities. They have been treated historically, not archaeologically. Nevertheless Hittite glyptic objects are well worth study from all points of view. They constitute the only extant remains which represent all the periods of Hittite civilization, and admit of arrangement in something like a continuous series; and it is a very real, though minor, count in their favour, that outside half a dozen great museums and West Asia itself, the student usually can see no other Hittite monuments. I began to interest myself in these objects when, in 1894, I chanced on a number of them in the market of Aintab in North Syria. Mr. (now Sir) Arthur Evans, then Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, took the lot off my hands and incorporated it in a considerable collection whose nucleus, acquired from the late Mr. Greville Chester, had been increased by other gifts, and by purchases made here and there with much judgement. Thus Evans had obtained already such prizes as the Indilimma cylinder, the gold tripod seal from Tamassos, and the silver tripod from Bor (Tyana). When, fifteen years later, I succeeded him as Keeper, I found the Hittite collection more representative than any other known to me of the various types of both roller - and stamp-seals as well as certain classes of amulets. My predecessor had devoted much care and wide archaeological knowledge to the arrangement of the collection, and he left a manuscript sketch of a catalogue raisonne, which his work in Crete had not allowed him to complete. He put his notes at my service and I have made full use of them. During the past seven years I have paid special attention to this Ashmolean collection, and have had unusual opportunities of adding specimens procured in the Near East either by myself or by agents. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.