Clay Sealings Research Articles

イラン, コル川流域, タル・イ・バクーンA III層の再検討

Tall-i Bakun A is a small Chalcolithic site (ca. the late fifth to early fourth millennium cal. B. C.) situated in the Kur river basin of the southern Zagros. The excavated northern building complex (hereafter Building Unit A) has been recognized as an administrative quarter because of the presence of many impressed clay sealings, while central and southern areas as a pottery workshop.The uncovered material from Building Unit A, however, included not only administration-related objects, but also pottery production tools and various domestic artifacts. Thus it would not make sense to propose a single funcfion for this unit.This article attempts to reconstruct various activities at Building Unit A, using the published in situ objects, and to propose a new interpretation on the nature of the Chalcolithic society at this mound. It suggests that Building Unit A consists of at least six to seven households and this household cluster is stratified by some craft and administrative activities. Although we have little information about central and southern excavated areas, three to five household clusters of the same scale may also have existed within the site. The overall evidence seems to indicate that the differentiation of labor occurred within the household cluster rather than between them.

Early Helladic Sealings from Geraki in Lakonia, Greece

In 1997, excavations conducted by the University of Amsterdam at Geraki (Lakonia) led to the discovery of a group of clay sealings amid burnt debris dating to Early Helladic IIB. The unexpectedness of finding clay sealings of such early date at this relatively unknown, inland site has prompted this preliminary report.

An Image of Complexity: The Burnt Village at Late Neolithic Sabi Abyad, Syria

The site of Tell Sabi Abyad in the upper Balikh valley of northern Syria is the focal point of a regionally oriented research project investigating the socioeconomic organization of later Neolithic society in the region. Recent excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad have brought to light a well-preserved settlement dating from the late sixth millennium B. C. and heavily affected by a violent fire, the so-called Burnt Village. The village consists of rectangular, multiroomed houses built of pisé along very regular lines and surrounded by smaller circular structures. Thousands of finds were recovered in situ from the burned houses, including ceramic and stone vessels, flint and obsidian implements, ground stone tools, human and animal figurines, labrets, axes, and personal ornaments. Most exciting, however, are the hundreds of clay sealings with stamp-seal impressions and the small tokens, which point to a very early but well-developed system of recording and administration. The Burnt Village was part of extensive networks of long-and short-distance exchange, and its inhabitants maintained relationships with groups of people in distant areas, such as the coastal regions of the Levant, the piedmont of southeastern Turkey, and the plains of Mesopotamia. External resources were mobilized and exploited in a regular manner and to a considerable extent, i.e., beyond the level of incidental transactions.

Laboratory and field observations of the accumulation of polar organic molecules in clay mineral sealings used in waste disposal sites

The composition of the organic matter of a core taken from the clay mineral sealing of the waste disposal site of Geldern-Pont (Germany) after 8 yr of operation has been analysed using GC and GC-MS. Results show that the organic carbon content of the upper part of the sealing which was closest to the waste increased by a factor of 10 when compared with the original unaltered clay. The extractable organic matter from the upper part of the sealing is significantly enriched in long-chain n-alkanes, with a dominance of odd-numbered chain lengths. Long-chain n-alkan-2-ones with a dominance of odd-numbered homologues accumulated in the lower part of the sealing. Two tetracyclic hydrocarbons (des-A-oleanene and des-A-lupane) were present only in the upper part of the sealing close to the dump. Both compounds probably originate from reworking of organic matter in the waste by anaerobic bacteria. Additionally, four Tertiary clays have been percolated in the laboratory with leachate from an industrial landfill over periods of 9 weeks and 19 months. The organic compounds in the seepage waters were primarily phenols, aniline and pyridine derivatives as well as aromatic and alipathic acids. During percolation many of these compounds were apparently microbially degraded in the clays to C 1–C 8 fatty acids. The results indicate that physico-chemical interaction of the clay minerals with organic compounds in the leachate was accompanied by microbial activity within the clays, leading to further conversion of the primary adsorbed organic compounds.

An unpublished inscribed roundel from Knossos (KH Wc 48; HM 1626)

Among the clay sealings from Knossos stored in the Heraklion Museum was found, in 1990, a hitherto unnoted roundel inscribed on both sides with signs in Linear A. The only completely preserved sign, AB 04 (TE), may perhaps represent an ideogram, while the motif on the two incompletely preserved seal impressions of a goat-monster seems to represent a development of the Minoan Genius not previously noted. The exact provenance is unknown. The suggested date of the document is MM III/LM I.

Conditions for clay sealings at joints: Schulz, H Proc Ninth European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Groundwater Effects in Geotechnical Engineering, Dublin, 31 Aug–3 Sept 1987VI, P245–250. Publ Rotterdam: A A Balkema, 1987

Conditions for clay sealings at joints: Schulz, H Proc Ninth European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Groundwater Effects in Geotechnical Engineering, Dublin, 31 Aug–3 Sept 1987VI, P245–250. Publ Rotterdam: A A Balkema, 1987

Archaeology and Social History : the Susa Sealings, Ca. 4000 - 2340 B.C.

The author studies those instances of clay sealings from the site of Susa (SW Iran, ca. 4000-2340 B.C.) in which more than one impression of a single seal is preserved. He observes that Susa B-style seals left their imprints on mobile containers (sacks, pots, baskets ?), while Susa C-style stamp and cylinder seals marked "bullae" (hollow clay containers with symbols of goods inside) and "locks" (devices for sealing doors). Third-millennium cylinder seals were impressed on containers of goods and "locks". The author proposes an interpretation in terms of a trend from reciprocity to redistribution.

THE SEALING STRUCTURES OF MINOAN CRETE: MM II PHAISTOS TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS

Summary. The thousands of MM clay sealings in Room 25 of the First Palace of Phaistos testify to the importation into Crete of the Near Eastern system of storeroom administrative controls. Minoan practice then diverged from the Near Eastern model. The development of a recognizably Minoan sealing system is illustrated by the LM IB sealing deposits from Ayia Triada, Zakro and Khania (with something of its evolution traceable via Mallia and Knossos). Despite many common practices in LM IB, however, important local differences coexisted within this Minoan system, perhaps suggesting the absence of a single overriding administrative authority at this time.

Clay Sealings from Shechem, the Sudan, and the Aegean

Previous articleNext article No AccessClay Sealings from Shechem, the Sudan, and the AegeanMartha Heath WienckeMartha Heath Wiencke Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Near Eastern Studies Volume 35, Number 2Apr., 1976 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/372472 Views: 5Total views on this site Copyright 1976 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Some Unpublished Knossos Sealings and Sealstones

While engaged in the study of pottery in the apothekai of the Stratigraphical Museum at Knossos in 1962, M. R. Popham discovered two boxes containing eighty-one fragments of clay sealings and five worn and damaged sealstones.The sealstones and sixty-seven of the sealings, those bearing distinguishable impressions, are published in this catalogue. The other fourteen fragments have been omitted; and of those published no photographs are provided here because the material will, it is hoped, appear fully in the volumes of the Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel devoted to the Herakleion Museum collection. The present catalogue is intended as an interim publication and, in particular, as a subscript to M. A. V. Gill's account of the Knossos sealings and their provenience.Of the two boxes in which this material was rediscovered the first came from an apotheke which housed pottery from the Domestic Quarter of the Palace. It contained the sealstones and forty-two of the sealing fragments (nos. I to V and 1 to 42 below). The second containing twenty-five of the sealing fragments (nos. 43 to 67 below) came from an apotheke just north of the Throne Room with pottery originating from the West Quarter of the Palace. Unfortunately the pottery in the apothekai is not an infallible guide to the original provenience of these sealstones and sealings. A few of the latter are duplicated by sealings in the Herakleion Museum of known provenience at Knossos or may be identified as from a particular deposit because a sketch of them appears in Evans's notebooks and/or because they are listed in The Palace of Minos. In fact the evidence tends to suggest that these sealings came from widely scattered proveniences both inside and outside the Palace (cf. BSA lx (1965) 60, and in particular comments on 1, 12, 17, 20, 28, 33, 51, and 52 below).

The Assyrian Royal Seal Type Again

In 1849 Sir Henry Layard's excavations among the ruins of Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh (the South-West Palace) produced a considerable collection of clay sealings, specimens of which were duly published in A second Series of the Monuments of Nineveh. In his description of this find, Layard discussed a ‘royal seal’, a circular stamp showing the king killing a lion, and mentioned that, on the impressions, the device ‘is frequently encircled by a short inscription, which has not yet been deciphered, or by a simple guilloche border.’ Until now these impressions, preserved in the collections of the British Museum, do not seem to have been illustrated, although Professor Sachs was able to list forty uninscribed examples of bullae and sealings bearing the same motif, fourteen of them showing the guilloche border, in his paper entitled ‘The Late Assyrian Royal Seal Type’.In all thirteen pieces of clay bearing impressions of inscribed ‘royal’ seals have been located so far in the Museum's collections, including additions made to Layard's original group (Collection no. 51, 9–2) from the excavations of Rassam, Smith, and Budge. They are here presented by courtesy of the Trustees.

Early Helladic Clay Sealings from the House of the Tiles at Lerna

Early Helladic Clay Sealings from the House of the Tiles at Lerna

The Aegean and the near East: Studies Presented to Hetty Goldman on the Occasion of Her Seventy-Fifth Birthday

IT WOULD BE impossible to review, or even to summarize, twenty-two articles presented in this attractively bound, carefully printed and edited, and excellently illustrated volume within allotted space. title suggests that there is a greater thematic unity to this Festschrift in honour of a very distinguished and highly respected American archaeologist than is usual in such volumes-and that is true. Most of articles are concerned with some phase of relations between Greece and Near East. A number are rather specialized archaeological studies of objects or classes of objects such as those from royal burials at Alaca Hfiytik by Kosay and by Mellink, of clay sealings from Cyprus by Benson, of Canaanite Jars by Virginia Grace, of Mycenaean figurines by Mylonas and by Frances Jones, of a class of pottery found at Tarsus (Miss Goldman's most important excavation) by Hanfmann, of bronze cauldrons with bull protomes by Amandry, and of Islamic coins from Tarsus by Miles. articles of most immediate interest to readers of Phoenix will probably be a study of Epigrams from Battle of by Benjamin Meritt; The Persian Spoils in Athens by Dorothy Thompson; and of Lydia at Corinth by Saul and Gladys Weinberg. last plausibly identifies sketchy scene on a small Corinthian aryballos of about 600 B.C. as earliest, in fact only, Greek representation of tale of Arachne and her weaving contest with Athena. Dorothy Thompson helps us to visualize spoils captured from Persians, especially at Battle of Plataea, many of which were long displayed in Parthenon to recall the triumphs of their finest hour. Meritt publishes a fragment of a late fourth-century inscription containing closing words of four metrical lines which he demonstrates form part of an epigram on Marathon of which two other fragments of original fifth-century text are known; a combination, with comparatively little restoration, at last provides a satisfactory text of whole epigram. Albright of Johns Hopkins contributes an important study on Northeast-Mediterranean Dark Ages and Early Iron Age Art of Syria. Two quotations will be of especial interest to classicists: The beginning of strong Phoenician influence on Greece is set by borrowing

Excavations at Nimrud, 1949-1953: Seals and Seal Impressions

This article is concerned with the seals and seal impressions on clay labels and business documents discovered at Nimrud during the five seasons of excavations conducted by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, from 1949-1953. The seals, and particularly the impressions of seals on dated tablets, and a few bullae provide a valuable addition to our knowledge of the development of Assyrian seal engraving. One of the aims of this study is, of course, to obtain as close a dating as possible for the different types. For this we have previously been dependent on the few seals in public and private collections, dated by inscription; on the seals and impressions from the excavations at Assur, dating mostly to the thirteenth century B.C., and to the ninth-eighth centuries B.C.; on the few seals found at Khorsabad, presumably not later than the reign of Sargon; and on the impressions upon clay sealings found by Layard in Sennacherib's palace at Quyunjik, (a few of these Layard illustrated and others he described).The new material leaves inevitably a number of gaps and problems; one of the principal gaps seems to be the lack of evidence for seals made at the time of Tiglath-pileser III; for example, we do not know whether the delicate engraving of seals such as ND.305 (Pl. XI, 1) was practised in his reign. The stone reliefs from Nimrud of Tiglath-pileser III are evidence of a distinctive development in design, and a comparable development in the art of seal engraving might be expected.

Note On Two Zakro Sealings

1. I Published a large number of clay sealings found in 1901 in a house of Late Minoan I. period at Zakro, Crete, in the Journal of Hellenic Studies (xxii. p. 76), with photographs of casts made in Candia from the different types. A representative set of duplicate sealings was afterwards presented to me by the Cretan Government and placed in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. When I became Keeper of this Museum some years later, I had these sealings recleaned and re-cast, and so obtained a clearer view of one type (No. 10 on p. 78 of the original publication). As it has some features of interest of which I was unaware previously, I republish it here.I had described it, from collation of thirty imperfectly cleaned impressions of the type, as ‘A female in long bell-skirt with hands on breast, opposed to a figure with cap and long mantle (?) from neck to feet.’ This description was wrong in several particulars. The female figure on the impression is moving to the left, and has one hand on her right breast, the other on her three-fold girdle. It is impossible to determine whether her face is turned full to the front or is seen in profile one way or the other. She is followed, not opposed, by another figure in peaked cap, cloak hanging loosely from the neck to the hips, and long round skirt. This figure, (perhaps male) bears over its left shoulder a long-handled axe.