Giorgio Buccellati and Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati 1996

“The Royal Storehouse of Urkesh: The Glyptic Evidence from the Southwestern Wing,”
Archiv für Orientforschung 42-43, pp. 1-32.

The present article focuses on the glyptic material (more than 600 seal impressions dating to the mid to late Akkadian period) coming from the Southwestern Wing of the Royal Storehouse (building AK) of Urkesh.

Paragraph 1 deals with the identification of Tell Mozan with the Hurrian city of Urkesh, stressing the fact that “Urkesh is the only Hurrian capital to have been positively identified” (p. 2); the glyptic material from Tell Mozan clarifies the ethnic awareness of its inhabitants, strengthening the existence of a peculiar ‘Hurrian art’ represented for the first time ever by the sealing from building AK.

Paragraph 2 presents the stratigraphic setting of the Royal Storehouse, probably located “on the inside of a presumed city gate”, underlining that “the great majority of the seal […] come from a single black floor accumulation, […] the first in the occupational history of the building” (p. 4).

Paragraph 3 focuses on the glyptic evidence, assuming that the total number of the sealings could represent at least 60 original seals, explaining the purpose of the sealings and stressing the “close correlation between seal design and seal inscriptions” (p. 7) and analysing their peculiar features.

Paragraph 4, 5, and 6 present the king’s, the queen’s, and the queen-household’s sealings respectively, dividing them in different categories according to their scenes.

Paragraph 7 deals with uninscribed seals.

Paragraph 8 offers some notes on the function of the seals, further investigating storing practices at Urkesh.