Late 4th-early 3rd millennium BC. A white jasper cylinder seal with incised crab(?) motifs; accompanied by a museum-quality impression and typed and signed scholarly note issued by W.G. Lambert, Professor of Assyriology at the University of Birmingham, 1970-1993, which states: 'Cylinder Seal of White Marble 20 x 17 mm. The design is mostly linear with a little gouging. It shows two pairs of devices tête-bêche with a horizontal stroke in the middle marking them off. They are water creatures such as crabs and form a nice simple design. This is a seal in the so-called Jemdet Nasr style, from Mesopotamia or south-west Iran. The seal has drilling begun at bottom and top, but the hole is not completed, as happens on Jemdet Nasr seals. It dates to c. 3000 B.C.' 11.48 grams, 20mm (3/4"). The Signo collection, the property of a West London businessman, formed in the late 1980s-early 1990s; item number W-577; academically researched and catalogued by the late Professor Lambert in the early 1990s; accompanied by an original typed and signed scholarly note by Professor Wilfrid George Lambert.