Mitannian cylinder seal (bottom), its modern impression (top left) and drawing (top right). Tomb 3, Mitopolis, Achaea (Greece). Late Helladic IIIA1 (ca. 1400 BCE). Sintered Quartz. Height 2.2 cm; diameter 1.02 cm. Archaeological Museum of Patras. Image after Corpus of Minoan and Mycenaean Seals, volume: VS3 no. 276 (https://arachne.uni-koeln.de/browser/index.php?view[layout]=siegel_item&objektsiegel[item]=0&objektsiegel[thumb_item]=0).My research project focuses on a group of some 85 cylinder seals found in Cyprus and the Aegean, that is on mainland Greece, Crete and Rhodes, which in past publications were assigned to the Mitannian glyptic style. In the regions under discussion, which cover the westernmost area of dispersal of Mitannian glyptics, these small-size artifacts have been unearthed mostly from funerary contexts dated to the Late Bronze Age, their main period of circulation. They include sintered quartz specimens as well as examples in hematite and lapis lazuli. Typologically, the bulk of these cylinders were attributed to the Common Style, while a few of them, mostly those made of hard stones, were assigned to the Elaborate Style — the two major sub-groups of Mitannian glyptics.
Since no study has yet systematically dealt with the Cypriot and Aegean Mitannian glyptic finds as a whole, the current research aims to fill this gap by revising prior appraisals pertaining to both corpora, discussing problematic issues related to them and, eventually, offering an updated synthesis on this topic.
Three major issues will be dealt with: the accuracy of the attribution to the Mitannian style of several cylinder seals from Cyprus and the Aegean; the characteristics and the distinctiveness of the Mitannian and possibly Mitannianized glyptic corpora from regions in discussion, in comparison with each other and with those from the Levant and Mesopotamia; and the art-historical implications of these seals.
The main contribution expected from the current research is to put both the Cypriot and the Aegean corpora of Mitannian and Mitannian-style cylinder seals in their wider context, and to investigate the interactions and entanglements between the core and the periphery areas of the Mitannian glyptic production, distribution, and use within the contemporary historical framework.
