tablet and included the list of officials and witnesses present. The tablet was then
allowed to dry, presumably in the presence of the witnesses, and was wrapped in an
envelope of clay on which a summary of the contents was written, and the seals were
rolled out in a special order, with some pressure being exercised in order to produce
a clear impression. In some cases, where a seal was uninscribed, or the person using
it was not that named in the seal inscription, an annotation or Beischriftin cuneiform
supplied the missing information (Teissier 1998 : 111 – 12 , 2. 2 ). A study (Teissier
1998 ) of sealing practices of 177 documents of the reign of Hammurabi of Babylon
( 1792 – 1750 BC) from Sippar, south of Baghdad, has shown that the upper obverse
left or upper edge of an envelope was reserved for persons of status should they be
present (Figure 7. 6 ). Envelopes were sealed at right angles to the text except on the
upper and lower edges. Generally the inscription on a seal was given priority over
the design. The complexity of sealing practice is apparent from the archives of the
Assyrian merchant colonies in central Anatolia (modern Turkey); these are beyond
the scope of this chapter but are contemporary and therefore of interest (Teissier
1994 ). Sometimes an individual who did not own a seal could arrange to have an
unperforated purkulluseal cut in a soft material (gypsum, clay), presumably on the
spot, with his name, patronymic and profession (Collon 1986 , p. 218 ; Figure 7. 7 ).
Another use of seals was on devices for locking storerooms. These are best attested
at this period for the city of Mari, on the Middle Euphrates in eastern Syria. A door
would be closed by means of a string linking it to a knob in the adjacent door-jamb;
the string would be wrapped around the knob and coated with clay over which the
officials responsible rolled their seals. Only by breaking the sealing or cutting the
string would the store be accessible, thus providing a deterrent to theft (Collon 1987 ,
no. 494 ).
— Dominique Collon —Figure 7. 7 Impression of purkulluseal. Inscribed ‘Adda, son of Dudu’. Ceramic. 3. 0 × 0. 95.
BM ANE 122549 ( 1929 - 10 - 17 , 361 ) excavated at Ur (Collon 1986 , no. 649 ).