variety of messages, sometimes nested, that the imagery of the seal could carry. What
follows is a selective survey of seals and sealings within the Sumerian world with a
focus on the message carried by the imagery. The third millennium BCin southern
Mesopotamia is a time when both writing and image making were charged with the
task of keeping order in a society that had become so complex that word of mouth or
a handshake could no longer suffice to protect the innocent from the unscrupulous. At
the beginning of this period, the images carried on the seals were the pictorial equiv-
alent of later text (Nissen et al. 1993 ). During the following millennium and a half, the
images were gradually freed from their textual burden and allowed to become complex,
multivalent, pictorial symbols. This cognitive achievement together with the material
embodiment of spoken utterance through writing, are among the intellectual found-
ations upon which civilization exists.
SEALS AS OBJECTSCylinder seals, and their forerunners, stamp seals, are by necessity made of sturdy,
durable materials that could both receive marks and withstand pressure against a soft
malleable material, which in the case of southern Mesopotamia was abundantly avail-
able as prepared clay. When the imagery carried on a seal is impressed, it produces an
identical copy of the image, only in reverse. Seals are almost always engraved by the
intaglioprocess which creates in negative a reversed version of what will be rendered
positive in an impression. When the seal carries an inscription, the signs are normally
carved in reverse so that they are legible in the positive impression. Only on seals that
were never meant to be impressed, such as divine or dedicatory seals, is the inscription
written to be legible on the seal itself.
The most common material used for seals in Sumer was stone, but metal (copper/
bronze, silver and rarely gold) and composite materials (terracotta, faience, and frit)
were also used. Organic materials such as bone and ivory are also documented, and it
is not impossible that wood was also used, although no examples survive. In the case
of metal or frit seals, the imagery was either engraved or more rarely cast. Southern
Mesopotamia, rich in water, fertile soil, reeds and date palms, has only poor quality
limestone stones locally available. Therefore, most of the raw materials used for seals
were by necessity imported from the highland regions surrounding the Mesopotamian
floodplain. Trade with these resource-rich highland zones to the east and west is
documented from the earliest times.
By the Uruk period, the movement of stones, metals, woods and other raw materials
into Mesopotamia probably in exchange for finished products including textiles and
prepared foods is well established. While exotic and very hard stones like obsidian
(Figure 16. 2 ) and rock crystal were used for cylinders from the beginning, softer stones,
marbles, calcites, colored limestone, serpentine, chlorite and steatite, are more typical.
The sources of soft stones were many and various and are for the most part imposs-
ible to pinpoint. But lapis lazuli, the luxurious dark royal blue stone, common in
Mesopotamia only during the Early Dynastic III period, comes exclusively from the
province of Badakshan in northern Afghanistan. Lapis combined with other materials
like carnelian and shell are especially abundant in the Royal Cemetery at Ur. Their
presence testifies to the extensive trade relations between southern Mesopotamia and
the east that thrived during that period. When these commercial relations became
–– Seals and sealings in the Sumerian world ––