page_title: Art of Uruk
section_title: Seals
hierarchical_section_title: Art of Uruk / Seals
caption_attribution_description: English: Jasper cylinder seal and impression: Serpopards (monstrous lions) and lion-headed eagles, Mesopotamia, Uruk period (4100 BC–3000 BC). Français&#160;: sceau cylindrique en jaspe et son empreinte&#160;: Serpopards (lions monstrueux) et aigles à tête de lion, Mésopotamie, Période d'Uruk (-4100 ~ -3000).
context_page_description: The art of Uruk encompasses the sculptures, seals, pottery, architecture, and other arts produced in Uruk, an ancient city in southern Mesopotamia that thrived during the Uruk period around 4200-3000 BCE. The city continued to develop into the Early Dynastic Period around 2900-2350 BCE. Considered one of the first cities, the site of Uruk – modern-day Warka in Iraq – shows evidence of social stratification, institutionalized religion, a centralized administration, and what art historians would categorize as high art and architecture, the first in the long history of the art of Mesopotamia. Much of the art of Uruk shows a high technical skill and was often made using precious materials.
context_section_description: Beginning in the Middle Uruk period, traditional stamp seals were replaced by cylinder seals. Uruk was the first civilization to make use of cylinder seals, a practice that would eventually permeate the entirety of the ancient Near East, as well as Bronze Age Greece. Cylinder seals were used by individuals and were a marker of one's identity as they acted as a signature and were used for officiating documents. The small objects were cylindrical in shape and were engraved with metal tools. The carving was done in such a way that the seals could be rolled onto clay in order to make an impression. Broken clay seal impressions have been found amongst the same layers of debris on Eanna Level IV where early clay writing tablets have been found. Though many of the recovered cylinder seals used to make such impressions are made of stone, there is also evidence that the people of Uruk used metal over bitumen, shell, and clay to create cylinder seals. The use of stone seals as signatures implies the existence of a complex administrative system in ancient Uruk. The subject matter depicted on the seal varied from kings and livestock to more religious subjects such as symbols of the gods.
caption: Cylinder seal and seal impression with serpopards and eagles from the Uruk period (4100-3000 BCE)
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "2110", "Image ImageLength": "760", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D70", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2012:10:14 18:10:17", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "292", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1070", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2600", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/100", "EXIF FNumber": "63/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:01:04 15:20:11", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:01:04 15:20:11", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "415241/62500", "EXIF ApertureValue": "331919/62500", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "1/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "35", "EXIF SubSecTime": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "80", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2110", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "760", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "944", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "52", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}