Seals and sealing in the ancient world : new approaches to glyptic studies / Sarah Scott, City University of New York, Sarah Kielt Costello, University of Houston, Marta Ameri, Colby College, Maine, Gregg Jamison, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Scott, Sarah, 1973- editor.

Costello, Sarah Kielt, 1971- editor.

Ameri, Marta, 1973- editor.

Jamison, Gregg (Gregg M.), editor.

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cylinder seals.

Seals (Numismatics).

Public administration--History.

Public administration.

History.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xxix, 467 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Summary:

Studies 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.

Contents:

Introduction: small windows, wide views / editors: Ameri, Costello, Jamison, Scott

Part I. The Ancient Near East & Cyprus

Administrative role of seal imagery in the early Bronze Age: Mesopotamian and Iranian traders on the plateau / Holly Pittman

Slave labor: Uruk cylinder seal imagery and early writing / Sarah Jarmer Scott

The first female bureaucrats: gender and glyptic in 4th-3rd millennia Northern Mesopotamia / Andrew McCarthy

Rematerializing the early dynastic banquet seal / Sarah Kielt Costello

Sealing practices in the Akkadian Period / Yelena Z. Rakic

Authenticity, seal recarving, and authority in the Ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean / Joanna Smith

Part II. South Asia and Persian Gulf

Indus seals and glyptic studies: an overview / Asko Parpola

Letting the pictures speak: an image-based approach to the mythological and narrative imagery of the Harappan world / Marta Ameri

Understanding Indus seal carving traditions: a stylistic and metric approach / Gregg M. Jamison

Operational sequences and stamp seals: a new approach to identifying groups of seal carvers in the Indus civilization / Adam Green

Seals and sealing technology in the Dilmun Culture: the post Harappan life of the Indus Valley sealing tradition / Steffen Laursen

Part III. Egypt

The evolution of ancient Egyptian seals and sealing systems / Joe Wegner

Early dynastic sealing practices as reflection of state formation in Egypt? / Ilona Regulski

Sealings and seals from pyramid age Egypt / John Nolan

The administrative use of scarabs during the Middle Kingdom / Daphna Ben Tor

Middle and New Kingdom sealing practice in Egypt and Nubia: a comparison / Stuart Tyson Smith

Part IV. Aegean

Introductory remarks, Aegean / Judith Weingarten

Aegean Bronze Age sealstones and fingerrings: chronology and functions / John Younger

An Aegean seal in Greek hands? Thoughts on the perception of Aegean seals in the Iron Age / Maria Anastasiadou

Cryptic glyptic: multivalency in Minoan glyptic imagery / Erin Mcgowan

The magic and the mundane: the function of talismanic class stones in Minoan Crete / Angela Murock Hussein.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

ISBN:

9781107194588

110719458X

OCLC:

986957817