Mycenaean Seals and Sealings

Abstract

AbstractAfter the introduction of a sealing system from the Near East into southern Greece in the Early Helladic period and the destruction of that culture, there is no demonstrable sign that seals were used on the Greek mainland until the sudden appearance of seals in the Mycenae Shaft Graves at the end of the Middle Helladic period. After the Shaft Grave period, seals are known on the Greek mainland, but there is almost no evidence that seals are being carved there. A stone mold for a gold ring found in a tomb at Eleusis constitutes the slim evidence for the making of seals Greece. Perhaps almost all seals used on the Greek mainland in the Late Bronze were made in Crete. After the fall of Knossos, Mycenaeans produced the Mainland Popular group, a series of beads in soft stones and glass that look like seals but were (almost) never used administratively.