Eternal Guardians - Tee

Winged Sentries From a Palace Gate

A monochrome engraving tee carrying the lamassu — the human-headed, winged bulls that stood at the doorways of Mesopotamian palaces for the specific job of guarding a threshold.

The artwork is cut in woodcut-style linework, all hard contrast and no shading. It reads as something pressed from a block rather than printed, which suits a subject that spent its original life carved into stone.

Lamassu were set in pairs at palace and city gates across Assyria and later Achaemenid Persia, positioned so that a visitor met their gaze on approach and their flank on the way past. Persepolis kept the idea and moved it upward: its column capitals were carved as twin bulls facing opposite directions, and the roof beams of the great audience hall rested in the saddle between their backs. Guardian and load-bearing structure, in one object.

The Design Vision

• Two sentries, two directions: The winged guardians sit at the top and bottom of the composition facing away from each other, which is how they were actually installed — nothing approaches unseen from either side.

• The twin-headed capital: At the centre sits the double bull capital from Persepolis, the piece that held the ceiling up. It anchors the graphic the same way it anchored the hall.

• Cut, not drawn: High-contrast engraved linework with no halftones, so the design holds its edge at any print size and reads as carved rather than illustrated.

Still facing outward, several thousand years into the shift.