The first appearance of cylinder seals in the ancient Near East dates well prior to the invention of cuneiform, to the Late Neolithic period in Syria.ⁱ The wish and need to affix a symbol of identity or certification to records of many sorts was perhaps the most significant driving force behind the development of this artistic technology but the desire to create, to make a statement and simply have one’s identity attested to by a beautiful image certainly contributed to the amazing three- thousand-year period of such seals popularity. During the more than three thousand years in which clay was used as the primary medium for cuneiform writing, the cylinder was the predominant shape for seals. Anywhere that the cuneiform script was used to record the native language, the cylinder seal was also used. Thus, the Hittites of Anatolia, the Elamites of Iran, and the Urartians in Armenia all used cylinder seals for administrative purposes. In addition, Egypt, with its hieroglyphic script, and the nonliterate cultures of Bactria in central Asia and the Iranian Plateau also used cylinder seals, particularly during the third millennium and the early part of the second. A lively and original style of cylinder-seal carving also flourished in preliterate Cyprus at the same time. In Mesopotamia, cylinder seals fell out of fashion only when the Aramaic script using ink on papyrus, parchment, or leather, began to replace cuneiform toward the middle of the first millennium.ⁱⁱ Sacred and secular ideas, fundamental to the beliefs of ancient Mesopotamian peoples, were visualized in the miniature images carved on the seals. The creators of these seals almost exclusively used intaglio, a technique in which the forms were cut into the stone, to create the raised impression. The challenge of the seal carver was to create a design that would maintain its balance and clarity when rolled out only half its length on a small surface or twice its length on a larger surface. Unlike much of the art of the ancient Near East, which survives only in a fragmentary state, cylinder seals are unique since they survive and can be seen almost exactly as they would have looked to the ancient people who used them in their daily lives and business.