sigillography

sigillography, the study of seals. A sealing is the impression made by the impact of a hard engraved surface on a softer material, such as clay or wax, once used to authenticate documents in the manner of a signature today; the word seal (Latin sigillum; old French scel) refers either to the matrix (or die) or to the impression. Seals are usually round or a pointed oval in shape or occasionally triangular, square, diamond, or shield-shaped.

Medieval matrices were usually made of latten—a kind of bronze—or of silver. Ivory and lead were occasionally used, gold very rarely. Steel was used from the 17th century. Matrices could include intaglio gems. The usual material for the impression was sealing wax, made of beeswax and resin, often coloured red or green. In southern Europe, notably in the papal Curia, lead and occasionally gold were used. Shellac, the wax used today, was introduced in the 16th century.

Seals were used to establish the authenticity of such documents as charters and legal agreements and for the verification of administrative warrants. In southern Europe, early medieval documents were drawn up by notaries and authenticated with their written signa, but this never replaced seals in northern Europe. Forgeries were manufactured as early as the 12th century, indicating how important seals had become. From that time, also, seals were used to close folded documents and thus to guarantee their secrecy. Seals were also used to affirm assent; for example, by a jury. Under the Statute of Cambridge (1388), sealed letters were used in England for the identification of people and their places of origin.

Sigillography is used to assist other historical studies. Many impressions have survived from the medieval period. Those attached to documents are most valuable, because the documents may date their use precisely and the seal may confirm the documents’ authenticity. Unattached seals may still provide useful evidence from their inscription or design. Fragmentary seal impressions are often difficult to interpret. Fewer matrices have survived and often without related impressions. Seals often reflect the taste of the owner. They provide evidence for changes in fashion in both secular and ecclesiastical costume and for the development of armour. Seals indicate heraldry before the earliest rolls of arms and are an original source for armorial bearings, which thereby enables the historian to trace the distinctions or alliances between various families and so contributes to genealogy. Craftsmen’s seals often display tools connected with trade. Depictions of towns, churches, castles, and monasteries, although conventional, can often aid the architectural historian. Seals can also be used profitably for studying ancient ships, particularly their shape and details of masts and rigging. The main difficulty in studying seal designs is that they were often conservative, especially since seals were often replaced with an exactly similar design.

Seals in antiquity

Seals with designs carved in intaglio were used throughout antiquity. They were of two main types—the cylinder and the stamp. The cylinder first appeared in Mesopotamia in the late 4th millennium bc and continued to be used there until the 4th century bc. It was also widespread in Elam, Syria, and Egypt (3rd millennium bc) and in Cyprus and the Aegean (2nd millennium bc). Stamp seals preceded cylinders, first appearing in Mesopotamia in the 5th millennium bc and developing over a period of about 1,500 years until largely replaced by the cylinder in the 3rd millennium. Early stamp seals were also used in Iran, northern Syria, and southeastern Anatolia during the 4th and 3rd millennia; in Anatolia their use was continued in the 2nd millennium by the Hittites. In Mesopotamia the stamp seal gradually came into use again in the 8th–6th centuries, effectively replacing the cylinder by the 3rd century bc. In Egypt the scarab largely replaced the cylinder seal early in the 2nd millennium bc and continued as the main type until replaced by the signet ring in Roman times. In the Aegean, various types of stamp seals were used throughout the 2nd and much of the 1st millennium bc, until in Hellenistic and Roman times the signet ring became dominant.

The uses of ancient seals are known from textual references and ancient sealings, both on lumps of clay and on documents found in excavations. In historical times most prominent citizens, including women, carried their own seals. That the rank or office of the owner was often included in the inscription indicates that many of these may have been official seals. Kings had their own seals, and high officials could hold the king’s seal as a mark of delegated authority.

Seals came into use before the invention of writing for the securing of jars, bales, bags, baskets, boxes, doors, etc., and this use continued throughout ancient times. The method was either to shape clay over the stopper or lid or to make a fastening with cord and place clay around the knot and then impress it with the seal.

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The sealing of written documents, of which the two major ancient classes were clay tablets and papyrus scrolls, became regularly established in the latter part of the 3rd millennium bc. The clay tablet was the main vehicle of writing in Mesopotamia, where cuneiform was used into the Christian Era, and this method spread to Elam, Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt; clay tablets were also used in the Aegean Bronze Age. The tablet was inscribed while the clay was soft, and seal impressions were applied at the same time.

The main kinds of sealed cuneiform documents were contracts, accounts, and letters. Contracts were sealed by the contracting parties and by witnesses and commonly encased in clay “envelopes,” on which the text was either repeated or summarized and the seals again impressed. Two special kinds of contract were the royal grant to a subject, impressed with the royal seal of the grantor, and the treaty between nations, a number of examples of which have been recovered, some of them bearing impressions of the seals of the royal contracting parties. Account tablets were sealed to authenticate the transfer of goods. A letter was often encased in an “envelope” and the sender’s seal impressed on the outside to identify him to the recipient and, in the case of official letters, to authenticate any commands contained in the letter.

In Egypt, papyrus documents may be assumed from soon after 3000 bc, but surviving evidence dates mostly from the latter part of the 3rd millennium onward. The method of sealing a papyrus document was to roll it into a tube, tie a strand or cord around the centre, and seal a clay lump over the knot. This method continued into the Christian Era, from which time a great number of Greek papyri have survived in Egypt. It was not until the 1st millennium bc that this kind of document, including by then leather and parchment, came into wide use outside Egypt. The spread of this kind of document, on which the space for a seal was small, probably played some part in the gradual replacement of the cylinder by the stamp seal.

No documents or sealings have been discovered from ancient India, but the still undeciphered inscriptions on the seals may include personal names, perhaps of merchants, who could have used the seals in much the same ways as their Near Eastern contemporaries, with whom they are known to have had commercial contacts.

Since seals were used throughout ancient times and are sufficiently durable to have survived in very large numbers, they form one of the few classes of ancient objects in which a continuous development can be traced. The great majority bear artistic representations, so their chief value is for art history, but, since these include details of environment (plants, animals), equipment (plows, chariots, musical instruments), or dress, they also contribute to cultural history.

Further information is provided by the inscriptions on seals. The existence of rulers known only from king lists may sometimes be confirmed by the discovery of their seals, and in some cases rulers are known only from their seals, which, because they often mention the names of their fathers, the cities that they ruled, and the chief gods that they served, form a valuable historical source. The assembling of tablets and sealings bearing the impressions of private seals can contribute to the reconstruction of business archives and the destinations of traded goods, thus providing valuable material for economic analysis, and far-flung trade contacts can be deduced from foreign seals in excavations (e.g., Indus Valley seals in Babylonia). Personal names are an important source for ethnic analysis, and inscribed seals, because they often name the owner’s father and even grandfather, provide material for this as well as for genealogical reconstruction.