Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World
Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World
Sarah Kielt Costello, University of Houston-Clear Lake
Gregg Jamison, University of Wisconsin, Waukesha
Sarah Jarmer Scott, Wagner College, New York
£146.00
GBPStudies 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.
- Highlights cross-cultural and cross-chronological perspectives on glyptic studies, seals, and sealing practices in the ancient world, making it appealing to people from different disciplines who specialize in different regions and time periods of the ancient Old World
- Utilizes a comparative framework lacking in previous studies of glyptic, seals, and sealing in the ancient world, providing an invaluable reference for comparative analyses of glyptic studies, seals, and sealing practices in the ancient world
- Highlights existing and new methodologies and approaches to glyptic studies, seals, and sealing practices in the ancient world, appealing to those interested in multiple methodological approaches to the study of the past
Reviews & endorsements
'… 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
Product details
April 2018Adobe eBook Reader
9781108173513
0 pages
0kg
75 b/w illus. 25 colour illus. 15 tables
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- 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.
