Iranian Studies

Abstract The techniques employed in the engraving of images on Mesopotamian cylinder seals possess novel and unprecedented characteristics. These seals contain valuable information about the rituals, beliefs, and intellectual structures of the societies of that period. With the appearance of images of composite creatures from the third millennium BCE, a fundamental transformation occurred in the depiction of these beings particularly in the form of gods, goddesses, and supernatural entities in Mesopotamian civilization. It appears that the origins of many composite creatures in various later mythological, historical, and geographical narratives are rooted in these early images. The aim of this research is a comparative study of the engraved images on Mesopotamian cylinder seals and the shared visual elements, in terms of form and content, found in the depictions of composite creatures in the lithographic edition of Zakariya Qazvini’s Ajāib al-Makhlūqāt. The research question asks what formal and content-related relationship exists between the depictions of composite creatures in Qazvini’s book and the images on Mesopotamian cylinder seals. Using a descriptive–analytical approach and focusing on identifying the origins and visual roots of these depictions, the present study examines the formal and content-related similarities between these two sets of images through comparative analysis. Based on the visual findings of this study, the imagery on cylinder seals of the Mesopotamian civilization gradually persisted in subsequent civilizations within the same geographical region, as well as in neighboring ones. This cultural continuity is observed during the Qajar era in the form of legends and myths in the lithographed book Ajāib al-Makhlūqāt. By comparing these images in terms of both form and content, it appears that the depictions of composite creatures in this book have their roots in the motifs found on Mesopotamian cylinder seals