3rd millennium BC. A shell cylinder seal with scene of animals fighting; 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 Fossil Shell 38 x 23 mm. The design is a contest scene of six quadrupeds on their hind legs. Two lions with bodies crossing are each biting the neck of horned animals, and a single unidentified creature has a body crossing that of the sixth animal. This comes from Mesopotamia and dates to c. 2500-2200 B.C. It is large but worn, as seals of fossil sheel [sic] often are.' 37.6 grams, 38mm (1 1/2"). The Signo collection, the property of a West London businessman, formed in the late 1980s-early 1990s; item number W-501; 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.