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 ADAM

  Bible Study Resource

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In 1932 E. A. Speiser of the University Museum of Pennsylvania discovered a seal near the bottom of the Tepe Gawra Mound twelve miles from Nineveh. He estimated that the seal came from about 3500 B.C.
It shows a naked man and a naked woman, both bent over as if they were oppressed or downcast. Behind them, partly broken, is a serpent (see drawing in upper left of image).
The seal is small, only about one inch in diameter, engraved on stone, and is now held in the University Museum in Philadelphia.
As Speiser pointed out, the image on the seal is strongly suggestive of the Adam and Eve story.

This greenstone cylinder seal dates from about 2200-2100BC, and is from Mesopotamia. It shows a tree, two human figures and what seems to be two serpents, one on either side of the figures. The scene may be loosely related to the Old Testament story of the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, without actually depicting that scene.
The seal shows a seated woman opposite a seated man who may be a god. There is a date palm or a tree between them, and this and the snakes may symbolize fertility. The scene is common on seals from this period, and may relate to mythic stories or religious ceremonies of the period.

(Left) A woodcut of the seal, showing the figures in more detail. The tree at the center of the image may be a date palm. Others have suggested it is a grape-vine trained along a trellis.

INTERESTING SITES - stories, pictures, reconstructions

Eve as one of the 'Bad Women' of the Bible
BIBLE TOP TEN: BAD WOMEN: EVE

The story of Cain's violent murder of his brother Abel
BIBLE TOP TEN: MURDERS

A short version of the story of Adam
BIBLE PEOPLE: ADAM

Eve and  the great themes in the story of Creation
WOMEN IN THE BIBLE: EVE