A Graeco-persian Gold Swivel Ring With A Carnelian Engraved Seal. Mercury And Male Figure.

Gold and carnelian
H. seal 13 mm
US 5 ^1/4 - UK K ^1/2;Total weight 7,50g
Graeco-Persian, 5th century B.C.

Provenance
Former Merton Simpson Collection, New York, before 1983
Galerie Nefer, Zurich, acquired from the former on November 3, 1983
European private collection


Gold swivel seal ring with an oval hoop forged in a single piece, rising into swollen shoulders that clasp a six-sided prismatic bezel of orange carnelian. The bezel, pierced horizontally by a gold axis, rotates freely to expose its faces: two bear figural intaglios, while the remaining four are left smooth. This prismatic seal typology — derived from Near Eastern stamp seals and archaic scaraboids — is characteristic of the workshops of the western Achaemenid satrapies in the 5th century BC.
Face A — Mercury (Hermes) standing
The messenger god is shown standing, nude, in profile; he wears the petasos and holds the caduceus, while the talaria mark his ankles. The figure is rendered in the frontal-profile scheme characteristic of the hybrid Greco-Persian style, in which classical Hellenic iconography is adapted to the linear sensibility and narrative taste of the Asia Minor workshops. The presence of Hermes — god of exchange, travel, and borders — takes on particular resonance in the context of the western satrapies, zones of intense contact between the Greek and Persian worlds.
Face B — Heroic male figure
Male figure standing, nude, wearing a conical cap — possibly a pilos, petasos, or the Persian kyrbasia — holding in his left hand a long staff or spear and, in his right hand, what appears to be a small stylised animal. This iconography evokes the well-attested motif of the master of animals (πότνιος θηρῶν / potnios thêrôn), a central theme of Oriental glyptics adopted and reinterpreted by Greco-Persian engravers. The figure could also represent a hunter displaying his quarry, or a local heroic figure — definitive identification remains open pending close examination of the attributes.