LA GLITTICA COME ESPRESSIONE D’IDENTITÀ CULTURALE? IL CASO DEI SIGILLI CILINDRICI MESOPOTAMICI ALL’INIZIO DEL III MILLENNIO A.C

The glyptic production at the beginning of the III millennium BC in “Great Mesopotamia” is marked by a passage from an international style to a development of regional and local styles. This process could mirror a redefinition of cultural identities in this territory. The aim of this paper is on one hand to investigate the cultural identities of these ancient people through the study of the iconographies attested in cylinder seals, considered as forms of self-representation; on the other, to recognize the mechanisms of definition of these identities consisting in assimilation or refusal of others’ symbolic elements.