In antiquity seals were utilized in various manners, most often as a means of personal identification, much like the ID cards we are issued today. As each were hand crafted, they provided the respective seal bearer with a unique insignia. This provided a system of bureaucratic verification in affairs of state and merchant accountability in matters of commerce. Many seal were shaped like cylinders and rolled across wet clay which would have been used for writing letters, or upon unbaked storage vessels transporting goods from one location to another.
The Ruth Martin seal collection offers a variety of stylistic variations and represents a milieu of cultures and periods, some as early as the Jemdet Nasr period, dating back to the 4th millennium in Mesopotamia. Heroic scenes, geometric designs and faunal representations abound in these small art works. The seal impression above depicts a faunal scene between two animals, one of which appears to be predatorial. Below is an example of a typical Old Babylonian seal depicting an offering scene.
Some seals ion this collection are engraved or moulded into bronze rings and stamped into such surfaces. The examples shown below are later later Roman Period adaptations of the common scarab ring originating in Egypt.
The collection offers still later examples of stamp seals from the Early Islamic Period with orate inscriptions carved into semiprecious stones.
For more information on these and other types of seals at the Tandy, please contact our curator, Heather Reichstadt at hreichstadt@swbts.edu.
