British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

After Alexander: Central Asia Before Islam

The bullae of Gobekli

Vasily Gaibov

The excavations at Gobekli-depe, which were carried out with only minor interruptions between 1981 and 2001, have brought to light not only a monument with unusual architecture but also diverse and extremely interesting archaeological material: pottery, coins, terracotta figurines, articles made of carved bone, metal etc.. Yet what should be regarded, without doubt, as the most interesting category of finds is the collection of the imprints of seals on clays – bullae. Over 3,000 of these have been found, most of which have come down to us in a fragmentary state. Preliminary iconographic analysis has made it possible to single out dozens of different subjects and groups of subjects. The subjects used on the seals were varied: geometric patterns, anthropmorphic and zoomorphic depictions, combined subjects, inscriptions and so on. So far no work to provide a general summary of all this material has been carried out, yet individual specimens and subjects found in the bullae have been published and presented to the public: one such occasion was a conference held in London in 1992. At that conference a group of Gobekli-depe bullae was examined, the subjects of which – according to the author of the paper – reflected to varying degrees the official ideology of the royal dynasty of the Arsacids. On this occasion I should like to take this subject further and analyse a small group of bullae, which was found after that paper had been published. Here we shall be discussing four fragmentary bullae, the imprints for which were made using one and the same seal: they represent a scene with two figures – one on each side of a fire altar and behind which there are inscriptions. Analysis of this group of bullae and also parallels for it found in reliefs, on seals and in painting from various parts of the Iranian world (starting with the era of the Medes and continuing until the Sasanian period) enables us to state confidently that this particular iconographic pattern, reflecting the idea of a king being glorified as an intermediary between the gods and his subjects, took shape in the world of the Persian-speaking peoples and evolved over a long period undergoing transformations over time. The seals themselves with depictions of scenes of this kind probably belonged to state officials.