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Description (Modern):
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Matthews (1993) p. 66 no. 32:
'U14122, IM 120934. U14123a, BM. U14123b, UM 31.16.670. U14886, BM 1930.12.13.404. UE 3:389. Moorey 389. All SIS4. H >4.4, L >9.5. Symbols: ?reed shrine ?UB, ?, ?URU2.
U14123a. Sealing 4.2 x 5.6 x 3.8. Two rollings. Reverse has straw impressions on one face and a smooth texture on the other, but is of unclear function. Functional type: ?'
UE 3 p. 36 no. 389:
'The oldest picture of the Sumerian reed shrine, brick tower with receding stages, and minor huts and shrines. The whole is engraved with characteristic details which deserve attention. The bundles of reed which are the frame of the hut are bent over, tied together, and form a naturally arched roof. Some of the terminals are left protruding over the entrance and are built on either side into the shape of monumental horns with huge scrolls and volutes between. Our hut is very like the byre represented on the well-known Warka trough (cf. No. 34). The same reed horns, but curving inwards, are found on the Louvre fragment AO. 8842, where the volutes are replaced by three masts adorned with six balls each. The researches of R. P. Dougherty (Annual of A.S.O.R., 1925-6, Fig. 62) have shown how the same reed and matting construction is preserved to the present day in modern Iraq. And the fragments of mud plaster found at Ur near the virgin soil in Pit F prove that the origin of the custom can be traced back to the first settlers. In our case the horn and volute decoration on the top of the hut bears a curious resemblance to the oldest Sumerian crown made of one pair of horns with feathers between. The Great House, which is a title of the kings of Egypt, may have been claimed by the old Sumerian rulers, and even may be interpreted as the first element of a pictographic inscription.
The door of the shrine brings us one step nearer in our interpretation. It is almost an oval divided by four horns into four quarters. This division into four parts is essential in a series of curious pictographs on the following seals. In the sign index this pattern may be identified with the sign UB, the very sign used in the royal inscriptions to designate, in a somewhat obscure title, a power extending to the 'four corners of the world'. These four corners may be simply the four points of the compass. The sense of orientation is as old as man. It is well known that nearly all Sumerian and Babylonian buildings follow the rules of orientation, with one angle pointing east. This may prove a key to a truer interpretation of the Swastika, a design as old and universal as the sense of orientation, the whole world being limited to the circle of the horizon, with four pillars or horns supporting the sky at the four points of the compass.
Next to the shrines, the brick towers on an artificial platform are a permanent feature of all Sumerian temples. Our drawing shows the details of the platform, recessed walls and stages, ramps of access, and crowning emblem-a spread eagle (?). The origin and meaning of the towers is still a moot question, but as the seat of a divine power they must belong to the same primitive cosmology as the orientated shrine.
Round the two main buildings are grouped smaller huts of two types; one is arched over, the second ends in a sharp point with side buckles or horns. They may be identified in the sign index with the signs DUL, AB, and UNU, which are used to write the ideographic names of many cities and dwellings, in this case of minor importance and dependent on the main shrine. There is also a minor shrine with curved horns, and three small poles between.
U. 13894, U. 14122, U. 14836, U. 14123. SIS 4. Pl. 51. (P. CBS. 31.16.670.)'
Moorey (1979) p. 107 no. 389:
'This is a redrawing of the central part of the design which Legrain recon- structed and interpreted as a ziggurat. Though the revised version does not differ fundamentally from Legrain's, it calls attention to the fact that he rendered the design more regularly and symmetrically than the rollings allow. In doing so he gave it an architectural form which is unjustified. If it reflects a structure, as indeed seems probable, the inspiration was the patterned end of a large reed-hut (cf. W. Thesiger, The Marsh Arabs (1964), PL 94-5), rather than superimposed mud- brick structures on a platform. Legrain did not notice the curving gable which extends across the top of the design.
U. 14233: SIS 4.'
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