CYLINDER SEAL VA 243 REVISITED INTRODUCTION It would not be a mistake to say that the cylinder seal VA 243 was first brought to attention of general public in 1976 when an American writer Zecharia Sitchin published his controversial novel The 12 th Planet, where he asserted, among other things, that the seal contains a depiction of our Solar system. The cylinder seal is housed in the Vorderasiatisches collection in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin, under the inventory number VA 00243 (Fig. 1). The seal is made of serpentine and dates back to the Akkadian period (ca. 2350 – 2150 BC). According to the museum’s brief description, the seal depicts an enthroned god with a plough in the raised hand and another god facing him, who introduces a worshiper carrying a lamb. 1 Between the introducing god and the worshipper, in the top register, there is a star surrounded by globes of various sizes. The inscription on VA 243 reads: “Dubsiga (personal name), Ili-illat (name of the seal owner), your/his servant.” Fig. 1. Clay impression of the cylinder seal VA 00243, Vorderasiatische Museum, Berlin. Since the image on VA 243 is indeed remarkable, it merits further investigation and should not be brushed away only because it was arguably misinterpreted by Zacharia Sitchin to fit his controversial hypothesis. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to review the existing arguments in an attempt to arrive at a more balanced and reasonable conclusion as to what is actually depicted on the debated cylinder seal. INTERPRETATION The controversial composition in the top register of the seal, located between the introducing god and the worshipper, depicts what looks like eleven globes of various sizes randomly scattered around a central star. For a better view and ease of reference, an enlarged drawing of the star-globes composition is reproduced in Figure 2 below.