Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World
Case Studies from the Near East, Egypt, the Aegean, and South Asia

This book highlights new cross-cultural and comparative scholarship and methodological approaches to ancient seals and sealing.

Marta Ameri (Edited by), Sarah Kielt Costello (Edited by), Gregg Jamison (Edited by), Sarah Jarmer Scott (Edited by)

9781107194588, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 May 2018

494 pages, 75 b/w illus. 25 colour illus. 15 tables
26.3 x 18.8 x 2.9 cm, 1.27 kg

'… Seals and Sealings in the Ancient World fulfills its promise of presenting well-written and well-informed research on the topic from various regions in the Old World. Together, the chapters demonstrate how a multiplicity of methods from a variety of disciplines can be used to analyze and interpret seals, sealings, and their glyptic, as well as recognize the varieties of methods and methodologies used by specialists studying other regions. This book should be in the libraries of experts, emerging researchers, and anyone aspiring to become a scholar of seals and sealings in the ancient world.' Siobhan Shinn, Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies

Studies of seals and sealing practices have traditionally investigated aspects of social, political, economic, and ideological systems in ancient societies throughout the Old World. Previously, scholarship has focused on description and documentation, chronology and dynastic histories, administrative function, iconography, and style. More recent studies have emphasized context, production and use, and increasingly, identity, gender, and the social lives of seals, their users, and the artisans who produced them. Using several methodological and theoretical perspectives, this volume presents up-to-date research on seals that is comparative in scope and focus. The cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach advances our understanding of the significance of an important class of material culture of the ancient world. The volume will serve as an essential resource for scholars, students, and others interested in glyptic studies, seal production and use, and sealing practices in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Ancient South Asia and the Aegean during the 4th-2nd Millennia BCE.

Preface Joan Aruz
1. Introduction: small windows, wide views Marta Ameri, Sarah Kielt Costello, Gregg Jamison, Sarah Scott
Part I. The Ancient Near East and Cyprus: 2. Administrative role of seal imagery in the early Bronze Age: Mesopotamian and Iranian traders on the Plateau Holly Pittman
3. Slave labor: Uruk cylinder seal imagery and early writing Sarah Jarmer Scott
4. The first female bureaucrats: gender and glyptic in 4th-3rd Millennia Northern Mesopotamia Andrew McCarthy
5. Rematerializing the early dynastic banquet seal Sarah Kielt Costello
6. Sealing practices in the Akkadian period Yelena Z. Rakic
7. Authenticity, seal recarving, and authority in the ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean Joanna Smith
Part II. South Asia and Persian Gulf: 8. Indus seals and glyptic studies: an overview Asko Parpola
9. Letting the pictures speak: an image-based approach to the mythological and narrative imagery of the Harappan world Marta Ameri
10. Understanding Indus seal carving traditions: a stylistic and metric approach Gregg Jamison
11. Operational sequences and stamp seals: a new approach to identifying groups of seal carvers in the Indus civilization Adam Green
12. Seals and sealing technology in the Dilmun culture: the post Harappan life of the Indus Valley sealing tradition Steffen Laursen
Part III. Egypt: 13. The evolution of Ancient Egyptian seals and sealing systems Joe Wegner
14. Early dynastic sealing practices as reflection of state formation in Egypt? Ilona Regulski
15. Sealings and seals from pyramid Age Egypt John Nolan
16. The administrative use of scarabs during the middle kingdom Daphna Ben Tor
17. Middle and new kingdom sealing practice in Egypt and Nubia: a comparison Stuart Tyson Smith
Part IV. Aegean: 18. Introductory remarks, Aegean Judith Weingarten
19. Aegean Bronze Age sealstones and fingerrings: chronology and functions John Younger
20. An Aegean seal in Greek hands? Thoughts on the perception of Aegean seals in the Iron Age Maria Anastasiadou
21. Cryptic glyptic: multivalency in Minoan glyptic imagery Erin Mcgowan
22. The magic and the mundane: the function of 'talismanic class' stones in Minoan Crete Angela Murock Hussein.

Subject Areas: Egyptian archaeology / Egyptology [HDDG], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], Architecture [AM]