Scene of Triumph Over the Stretched Enemy Next to an Anatolian Sacred Tree on One Old Assyrian Sealing from Kültepe (the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, I 2 b 1598)

The paper presents a study of a seal impression from Kültepe (Kanish, Old Assyrian period) from the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow, inv. No. I 2 b 1598). The authors were first to prepare the drawing of the damaged image, using modern methods of computer processing and modifying digital photographic material, to recognize in detail its plot and to trace its place within the context of concepts and iconography of the Ancient Near East. It was revealed that the seal depicts a scene of triumph over a defeated enemy in front of a deity sitting on the throne and the sacred tree of some rarest form; the imagery seems to be a fruit of synthesis of Mesopotamian motifs (the pose of both the enemy and the triumphant) with the Eastern Anatolian ones (the tree of the above-mentioned rare form and other parallels provided by one Hittite Empire seal).