The Use of Monograms on Byzantine Seals in the Early Middle-Ages (6th to 9th Centuries)

Abstract

The paper deals especially with monograms on Byzantine lead seals. The early form was the block monogram , a type used already in Classical times, which came into fashion in the Byzantine world in the 6th or already in the 5th century and remained important till the early 7th century. Such monograms hide normally a name, a title or an office, the Greek ones in genitive, the Latin ones in nominative or genitive. Many of them can be read in different ways. For the double using of parts of letters for other ones the well-known Latin monogram of Theoderich is explained in detail. But the “typical Byzantine monogram” became the cross monogram , with letters more or less affixed on the arms of a Greek cross. The earliest example stems from a coin of Justinus I, starting 522, quite earlier than Theodora’s monograms on capitals in the Hagia Sophia. These cruciform monograms presented in the beginning also a name, a title or an office, but in the 8th century already often a combination of them; these monograms with prosopographical information stopped in Byzantium at the end of the 8th century. On the other hand invocative monograms (like Θeοτόκe βοήθeι), often with the tetragram τῷ σῷ δούλῳ in the free quarters of the monogram, started around the middle of the 7th century and can be found till the earlier 11th century. The most common ones were collected by V. Laurent – we use this system till today, though there are much more types documented. An important problem is that sometimes single letters are “hidden” in another letter, e. g. Lambda in Alpha or Delta, Epsilon in a Kappa on the left bar of a cross monogram, Sigma in Epsilon, Sigma in Kappa, Omikron in Rho, etc. In Vienna we developed a special program to solve many monograms. If we bring all the readable letters of a monogram (including the possibly additional ones) in an alphabetical order, and do the same with the letters of names, titles and offices which were used in this time, both categories can be combined without problems. Sometimes even modest combinations of letters can be interpreted in many ways – e.g. with usual and very rare names; but who could forbid someone with a rare name to produce a monogram for himself?