Neolithic seal with bull heads found in Turkey

A distinctive seal with stylized bulls facing one another is discovered in the Domuztepe Mound, a Late Neolithic settlement located in the southeast of Turkey. The stamp's button shape features two heads of animals mirroring each opposite on the oval serpentine rock. Along the edges is a line of straight lines radiating outwards.

Settlement in the Halaf culture which was a farming community that was in the northern part of Mesopotamia along with Syria between the 6100 B.C. between 5100 and 6100 B.C. They are famous for their exceptional quality of the pottery they made using clay from the local area. The painted polychrome pottery they produced was extremely sought-after, and they were distributed throughout the region, probably being traded among the elite of the region. The ceramics were decorated with intricate abstract or animal patterns in red, brown or dark black (both the iron oxide colorants) against an unbleached background.

It is believed that the Halaf culture is the source of the first recorded stamp seals found on the archeological records. Halaf seals are typically simple rectangles or circles that were made of grid lines intersecting and chevrons. A particular example found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is distinctive for its zoomorphic design believed to be that of hedgehogs, but the design of the surface is an ordinary grid with Exes in every cell.

The seal that was discovered recently uses an image previously only seen on pottery such as the buffalo or bull head. The design of the head and horns depicted on the pottery are distinct from the design of the seal. It is possible that one design is intended to symbolize domestic cattle, and the other is water buffalo, however they could be both domestic bulls that have two different high-quality, stylized designs.

'The bullheads that are depicted on various materials are generally accepted as an example of the domestic cattle (Bos Taurus) in the Near East. However it is possible that the species that is in the specimens that were shaped to be a paint decoration on pottery as well as scraping seal impressions could be a the water buffalo (bos bubalis). As archaeozoological studies haven't been finished yet so it's premature to claim that water buffalo were introduced to the Eastern Mediterranean, where Domuztepe is located, around about 7th-6th millennium BC.'