RESOURCES
Inscriptions on seals amount to contemporary primary sources. They
are especially valuable because of the absence of other kinds of in-
scriptions in Middle Persian in the late Sasanian period generally or
in Iraq in particular. Inscribed seals that provide evidence for the
religious significance of Iranian names and for the administrative struc-
ture of the Sasanians and of the Magian priesthood have been found
in Iraq. Administrative seals are included along with all the others in
the catalogues noted above. Among early studies one should consult
P. Casanova's "Sceaux Sassanides," Revue d'Assyriologie 22 (1925):
135-40, and E. Herzfeld's "Notes on the Achaemenid Coinage and
Some Sasanian Mint-names," in Transactions of the International
Numismatic Congress, 1936, J. Allan and H. Mattingly, eds. (London,
1938), pp. 413-26. Unfortunately C. Torrey's readings in "Pehlevi
Seal Inscriptions from Yale Collections," JAOS 52 (1932): 201-7,
tend to be unreliable, but the plates are good and the seals at Yale
are identified. Two of the administrative seals pertain to Iraq, as do
two of the excellently illustrated seals in A. Maricq's "Classica et
Orientalia. 10. Cachet administratif sassanide," Syria 39 (1962): 104-
- The importance of such seals for Sasanian history is discussed by
J. Harmatta in "Die sassanidischen Siegelinschriften als geschichtliche
Quellen," Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 12 (1964):
217-30.
By far the most important work on Sasanian inscribed seals and
seal impressions over the last two decades has been done by R. Frye,
whose attention to seal impressions goes beyond the inscribed gems
in museum collections and includes sealings found in situ at archae-
ological sites. His article on "Die Legenden auf sassanidischen Sie-
gelabdriicken," WZKM 56 (1960): 32-35, concerns western Iran. It
is followed by a series of articles on particular collections, such as
"Sasanian Clay Sealings in the Collection of Mohsen Foroughi," Ira-
nica Antiqua 8 (1968): 118-132, also published as part Il, vo!. VI,
portfolio 1I, Seals and Coins of the Corpus lnscriptionum Iranicarum
(London, 1971); "Sassanian Clay Sealings in the Baghdad Museum,"
Sumer 26 (1970): 237-40; "Inscribed Sasanian Seals from the Nayeri
Collection," Forschungen zur Kunst Asiens (Istanbul, 1970), pp. 18-
24; and on the seals found near Shiraz in his Sasanian Remains from
Qasr-i Abu Nasr: Seals, Sealings, and Coins (Cambridge, Mass., 1973).
He has published at least three general discussions on the use of seals
in the Sasanian period: "Sasanian Seal Inscriptions," in Festschrift
Franz Altheim, pp. 77-84; "Sasanian Seals and Sealings," in Memorial
