stamp seal
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__NOTOC__ The stamp seal is a carved object, usually stone, first made in the
4th millennium BC The 4th millennium BC spanned the years 4000 BC to 3001 BC. Some of the major changes in human culture during this time included the beginning of the Bronze Age and the invention of writing, which played a major role in starting recorded history. ...
, and probably earlier. They were used to impress their picture or inscription into soft, prepared clay. Seal devices have seldom survived through time; it is usually only their impressions. A major exception are the
cylinder seal A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in length, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally ...
s made of stone, of which examples of their ancient impressions have survived as well, the majority being of
clay tablet In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets (Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age. Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay tablet with a stylu ...
s sealed as an ''authentication''. The
Halaf culture The Halaf culture is a prehistoric period which lasted between about 6100 BC and 5100 BC. The period is a continuous development out of the earlier Pottery Neolithic and is located primarily in the fertile valley of the Khabur River (Nahr al-K ...
saw the earliest known appearance of stamp seals in the Near East.


Indus stamp-seal

Different from the Minoan stamp-seals, the Indus stamp-seals probably have a different function from the stamp seals of the
Minoan civilization The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 1450BC ...
, as they typically have script characters, with still undeciphered associations.


Gallery

File:WLA brooklynmuseum Stamp Seal of Meru-the Answerer of Horus.jpg, Stamp seal of an Egyptian named:
Meru-the Answerer of
Horus Horus or Heru, Hor, Har in Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as god of kingship and the sky. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the P ...

(
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...
) File:Cylinder seals and stamps REM.JPG, Stamp seals


See also

*
Ancient Near Eastern seals and sealing practices Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...
*
Bulla (seal) A bulla (Medieval Latin for "a round seal", from Classical Latin ''bulla'', "bubble, blob"; plural bullae) is an inscribed clay or soft metal (such as lead or tin) or bitumen or wax token used in commercial and legal documentation as a form of aut ...
*
Cylinder seal A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in length, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally ...
*
Impression seal The impression seal is a common seal that leaves an impression, typically in clay and less often in sealing wax. In antiquity they were common, largely because they served to authenticate legal documents, such as tax receipts, contracts, wills an ...
*
Indus script The Indus script, also known as the Harappan script, is a corpus of symbols produced by the Indus Valley Civilisation. Most inscriptions containing these symbols are extremely short, making it difficult to judge whether or not they constituted ...
*
LMLK seal LMLK seals (with LMLK meaning 'of the king') are ancient Hebrew Stamp seal, seals stamped on the handles of large storage jars first issued in the reign of King Hezekiah (circa 700 BC) and discovered mostly in and around Jerusalem. Several comp ...
s from
Lachish Lachish ( he, לכיש; grc, Λαχίς; la, Lachis) was an ancient Canaanite and Israelite city in the Shephelah ("lowlands of Judea") region of Israel, on the South bank of the Lakhish River, mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. Th ...
, ca 700 BCE. *
MMST MMST (Hebrew: ''MMŠT'') is a word written in Paleo-Hebrew abjad script. It appears exclusively on LMLK seal inscriptions, seen in archaeological findings from the ancient Kingdom of Judah, whose meaning has been the subject of continual controv ...
*
Seal (emblem) A seal is a device for making an impression in Sealing wax, wax, clay, paper, or some other medium, including an embossment on paper, and is also the impression thus made. The original purpose was to authenticate a document, or to prevent interf ...
*
Tell Halaf Tell Halaf ( ar, تل حلف) is an archaeological site in the Al Hasakah governorate of northeastern Syria, a few kilometers from the city of Ra's al-'Ayn near the Turkish border. The site, which dates to the 6th millennium BCE, was the firs ...


References

* Garbini. ''Landmarks of the World's Art, The Ancient World,'' by Giovanni Garbini, (McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, Toronto), General Eds, Bernard S. Myers, New York, Trewin Copplestone, London, c 1966. Numerous examples of the
Cylinder seal A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in length, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally ...
; ( 3 ) separate Discussions (only) of "Stamp sealing". No seals, or impressions thereof. *P. Yule, ''Early Cretan Seals: A Study of Chronology.'' Marburger Studien zur Vor und Frühgeschichte 4 (Mainz 1981), http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/yule1981/ Online


External links


Detail of Stamp seal-Medium Res


mcclungmuseum.utk.edu—''Jar, and associated Stamp Seal''

– at the
Oriental Institute of Chicago The Oriental Institute (OI), established in 1919, is the University of Chicago's interdisciplinary research center for ancient Near Eastern ("Orient") studies and archaeology museum. It was founded for the university by professor James Henry Brea ...
. {{Authority control Seals (insignia)