Part 2

It is very difficult for us, especially for those of us who are not familiar with Eastern civilization, to realize the great importance that was attached to the seal by the peoples of the Ancient World. It was far more of a necessity in everyday life to the people of antiquity than are our seals to us, or locks and keys to a modern householder. We still use the seal, it is true, for our legal documents, sometimes for our letters, for our post-bags, and occasionally for sealing up a room. Our Ministers of State have their Seals of Office, our Corporations and Companies have their registered official seals, and in our Coronation ceremonies there is the investiture of the Sovereign with the Royal Signet Ring. But all these uses of the seal are as ancient as the pyramid-builders of Memphis. When we use the signet for sealing our letters or our legal documents, we are but following in the footsteps of the Ancient Egyptian, who, many hundred years before the time of Moses, employed the seal for the same purpose. When our Ministers of State receive from the Sovereign their Seals of Office, they are but following a custom that prevailed in Egypt as early as the Fourth Millennium before Christ; and when Edward the Seventh was recently invested with the Royal Signet Ring at his Coronation, he was but conforming to a ceremonial act that was recorded by the rulers of the Nile Valley four thousand years before William the Norman set foot on the shores of Britain.

But in ancient times the seal was used for many purposes for which later inventions have proved more convenient. At the present day, when closing our doors, we generally lock them by a spring-bolt, and only attach a seal on very rare occasions. Locks and keys, however, are comparatively modern inventions, for the most ancient in Egypt are not older than the Roman period; and what locks and keys are to us, seals were to the people of the Old World. In ancient times, whenever a man left his home he always sealed up such parts as contained stores or other valuable property, so that they might be rendered secure from the attacks of thieves or slaves. In like manner boxes containing clothes or personal ornaments, and jars containing wine or oils, were kept under seal. The words meaning “to close” and “to seal” were in Egyptian[2] synonymous; indeed, to place a thing “under seal” was an ancient expression equivalent to the modern one of keeping a thing “under lock and key.”

To secure property from theft was, however, only one of the many uses of the seal; it was employed in other equally important ways. In Western countries, where writing has now become a universal accomplishment, a person’s written signature is sufficient to give authority to a document, but in ancient times a seal or signet was a necessity to anyone possessed of even the smallest amount of property, for without it no legal or other writing could be attested. Herodotus (I, 195) mentions that everyone in Babylonia carried a seal, and the same remark would apply with equal truth to Egypt. In England, from the Norman Conquest to the time of the taking effect of the original Statute of Frauds (1677), the seal was always used to make a writing valid and binding, and in Scotland every freeholder was required by law to have a registered seal.[3] At the present day an Eastern, when sealing a letter, smears the seal, not the document, with the sealing-substance, and illiterate persons will sometimes use the object nearest at hand, such as their own finger, which they daub with ink, and press upon the paper therewith. In Babylonia the finger-nail was sometimes impressed into the clay as a seal; while in America, in comparatively recent times, the eye-tooth impressed upon the wax has been used for attesting a document (1 Wash. Va. 42, quoted in _American Law Review_, Vol. XXVIII, p. 25). The right hand smeared with ink and impressed upon a parchment was often used in mediaeval times in place of a signature, and this, with the seal impressed beside it, gave rise to the modern legal expression, “Witness my hand and seal.” The Sultan’s cipher, which appears on the coinage and official documents of the Turks, is said to have originated in this way. The Republic of Ragusa concluded a commercial treaty with the Ottomans in 1395, by which it placed itself under their protection, and it is said that Murad signed the treaty, for lack of a pen, with his open hand, over which he had smeared some ink, in the manner of Eastern seals—a veritable sign-manual. (Stanley Lane-Poole, _Turkey_, p. 35.) In ancient times, however, the document was rolled up and tied with a piece of string, the knot of which was covered with a pellet of clay and sealed. It was not only in Egypt that this was so, but in all countries of the ancient world; in Babylonia and Assyria as well as in Greece and Italy. A written signature would have been of no avail to attest a document; a seal had always to be used. Doubtless in the earliest times only the most powerful persons possessed seals, but as civilization advanced the officers of the administration came to use, besides their own personal seals, official ones for government purposes. Thus it was that the seal, being the real instrument of the power and authority of an office, came to be used as the symbol of it, and the delivery of an official or State seal to an individual, gave to that individual the authority and power to execute the rights and duties of his office.

The various links in the history of the seal which connect its original employment for securing the contents of jars, to its latest one for transferring authority from one person to another, are all preserved, and form a most interesting object lesson in “social evolution.” The seal is, indeed, so intimately associated with the early history of civilization, that it is probable that its origin goes back to the very institution of the right of private property. Its early history is full of interest. If we turn to any of the literatures of the Old World—whether it be the Egyptian or Babylonian, the Hebraic or Assyrian, the Greek or Roman, it is the same; we find in each and all of them abundant passages concerning the importance of the seal and the various uses that it was put to. Further, if we study these references, we discover that the signification of these little objects was everywhere the same, and if passages were selected from the Egyptian writers regarding the uses of the seal, it would be easy to parallel them all from the works of any of the other Old World peoples. We ought, however, before discussing the various uses of the seal, to inquire into its origin.

3. ORIGIN OF THE SEAL.

[Sidenote: Origin of the seal.]

In his _Hand-book of Engraved Gems_,[4] King has stated his belief that the use of the seal was almost coeval with the very institution of the right of private property, and this seems to be well borne out by what we actually know of its early history. All the evidence from Babylonia and Egypt available as to its original use appears to point in one direction, that it was first employed for securing household stuff and other moveable property. In the earlier stages of civilization this consisted mainly of grain, honey, etc., always liable to be pilfered by the dishonest slave, or by smaller hands addicted to picking and stealing. If the proprietor, therefore, wished to keep his stores of food intact, it was necessary that he should adopt some means of checking the pilferer, and the idea early occurred to him that if he placed his little store in a jar or other vessel, and covered the mouth of it with a plaster of mud or clay, it might be protected to a certain degree against the thief. But merely plastering the mouth with mud or clay was not enough to preserve the contents from a skilful plunderer, for he might easily, and without fear of immediate detection, remove a capping, steal the contents of a jar, put on another plaster of mud, and leave no trace of his theft until the jar was opened by its owner. It was obvious therefore that a capping of clay alone was not sufficient. Now it is probable that the mud used in the process of covering the mouth of the vessel would often be rolled or smeared flat with a piece of stick, a joint of a reed, or a flat-bottomed pebble. Many of these objects must have had natural markings on them which would have left impressions on the clay, while these impressions, we can hardly doubt, were early noticed by the primitive store owner, and their condition served to tell him whether or not his closed jars had been tampered with. In this connection it is interesting to note that Aristophanes (Thesmo., 424-428), when referring to the custom of securing doors by sealing them, alludes to certain [Greek: thripêdesta sphragidia], which were worm-eaten bits of wood used as rude seals. He speaks of them as having supplanted the simple seals of olden days, but they ought rather to be considered as a return to the early type of “reed” seal. (Muller, _Archäol., I. Kunst._, 97, 2.) From the natural markings upon the objects employed to smooth the clay, the transition was easy to some definite device scratched around the circumference of the stick or reed, or upon the surface of the stone or pebble, by the owner, and appropriated to himself as his own peculiar mark. But as these markings or devices would have had little weight with a determined thief, we can hardly doubt that, in Babylonia at any rate, they became early imbued with a _magical_ signification: so that their real power would be moral rather than physical. The reasoning of the lawyers of the Middle Ages regarding the sealing of contracts was that a _seal_ attracts and excites caution in illiterate persons, and thereby operates as a security against fraud.[5]

The simple scratchings that we find on so many of the early Egyptian pots were the possessors’ marks; indeed, King contends that “this instinct of possession extending itself to the assumption of exclusive ownership in certain configurations of lines, or rude delineations of natural objects, is a universal impulse of man’s nature, and one found existing amongst all savage nations when first discovered, wheresoever the faintest trace of social life and polity have begun to develop themselves.” A great number of these signs Professor Petrie has preserved in his various records of explorations. (_Cf._ his _Naqada_, p. 44.) Thus the Red Indian has besides the tribal mark, that of the individual (his special _totem_), wherewith to identify his own property, or the game he may kill. The South Sea Islander carries the tattooed pattern that distinguishes his particular family, imprinted upon his own skin, and also draws the same upon his credentials like a regular coat of arms. It is therefore in these markings firstly scratched on pots, and next on rude seals, that we have the very beginnings of writing; but a long period probably elapsed before these primitive signs were combined together to form words. The designs on these seals were probably at first rough configurations of lines, which sufficiently served their purpose if they could be readily identified by the owner; but after a time these primitive figures seem to have given place to rude delineations of natural objects which expressed the name of the owner, like the Greek coins of Rhodes (a rose); of Melitaea (a bee), and were consequently looked upon as his particular mark. We have not as yet got back in Egypt to such primitive forms, but on Greek gems and coins this _type parlant_, “figured speech,” is well known.

The original forms of the two great groups of Egyptian seals we have in the piece of notched reed and in the small scratched pebble; the first the true prototype of the cylinder, both in form and in mode of application; the second as clearly the original of the stamp seal. Simple as the invention of these two forms and the art of sealing may now appear, the discovery that an impression of a seal could be obtained by pressing it on clay or other plastic substance was nevertheless one of the most momentous that has yet been made, and the seal-impression furthermore suggested the idea of decoration in bas-relief. From the invention of the simple seal to the complex printing-press with its moveable types appears a long way to travel, but that we have the germ of this great invention in the simple seal is obvious when we come to think of it. The old Egyptian or Babylonian who first took an impression of his signet on a lump of plastic clay, had discovered the principle of printing, though it took the human mind many hundred years before the next great step was made, that of smearing some black or coloured substance upon the seal and taking a “print” of it on plaster, as in the tomb of Thothmes IV (_circa_ B.C. 1400), and in ink on a papyrus of the Ptolemaic age.

4. VARIOUS USES OF THE SEAL.

(_a_) _For securing Property._

It has been suggested in a preceding paragraph that the original use of the seal was for securing stores of food from dishonest servants; and this statement is corroborated by the fact that the earliest “sealings” that have been found in Egypt are from jars that were used for storing wine, honey, grain, and other food stuffs. Figures 1 and 2 represent two jars found by M. de Morgan in a First Dynasty cemetery in Upper Egypt,[6] (_circa_ B.C. 3500), and the general system of sealing jars and large vessels may be clearly seen from these examples. The mouth of the jar, it will be observed, was first covered by an inverted plate or cup of pottery (fig. 1), in order to prevent the wet clay (the [Greek: gê sêmagtris], “sealing earth,” of the Greeks) used in the process of closing the mouth from falling into the jar. Upon and around this was plastered a high cone of clay (fig. 2), mixed with palm fibre, and carefully smoothed, so as to take easily the impression of the cylinder seal, which was rolled across it at right angles. Generally two impressions of the same seal are found on each clay cone, but sometimes two or more impressions upon the same cone occur from _different_ seals. This shows the great care that was given in early times to secure the contents of a vessel from thievish servants, a fact which is emphasised by our sometimes finding that a jar had often two _separate_ sealings, one below the other, the outer coat being put on while the inner one was still damp. “Thus,” writes Professor Petrie of some clay cones of this kind which he found at Abydos, “often a quite illegible cone may yet yield a good inscription by carefully knocking away the outer coat.”[7]

This system of sealing large jars with high clay cones apparently lasted on till the beginning of the sixteenth century B.C.; then another kind of sealing is met with. In the place of the high clay cone, a clay cap with flat top was used, the flat top and sometimes the sides being impressed with a wooden stamp. Later still, at the time of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, the early inverted cap or plate gave way to a pottery cap or bung, which was secured in place by string or linen bands, and covered with a rounded cap of plaster. There is an interesting specimen of a complete jar neck bearing the stamp of Amasis, with clay and plaster sealing still fixed to it, found at Tell Defenneh (see figs. 3 and 4); it is important as showing the very elaborate system of sealing jars at that time in vogue. Firstly, a large bung of pottery (fig. 3), made hollow, was put into the mouth of the jar. This was then fastened down by linen bands, the ends of which were tied up in the middle, and a lump of sealing clay fixed upon it and impressed with six different seals of inspectors. Although this clay had crumbled and been washed out by rains in the course of ages, it still left a cast in the plaster showing the seals as they appear in fig. 4. After the six inspectors had each put his seal on it, the jar was sent out to the plasterer, who capped the whole top with a head of plaster, and sealed it with the royal name in its oval-cartouche. Even these elaborate precautions, it would seem, did not suffice to secure the contents of this particular amphora from the thief, for the jar neck, as Professor Petrie remarks, is an instance of a successful attack upon the royal stores. The cap of plaster has been bored through just at the edge of the jar, and the large bung inside smashed through, so as to enable the thief to reach freely the wine. The piece of plaster broken out here is shown missing in fig. 4, though it was found in the jar; the hole just shows the edge of the neck, and was filled up with a scrap of the old plaster and a smear of new of a different quality; no attempt was made to imitate the missing part of the cartouche, and this probably raised the cellarer’s suspicion, and made him break off and preserve the whole jar neck as evidence. (Petrie, _Defenneh_, p. 72.)

This method of securing the contents of large jars and amphorae lasted on far into Roman times. Horace mentions as a test of a good tempered house master, that he did not go wild with passion even if he found that a seal of a wine jar had been broken. And even at the present day the traveller on the Nile may still see boats, at certain seasons of the year, floating down stream from Erment, Kûs, and other centres of the sugar industry, laden with molasses in peculiar jars (_ballalîs_), secured, in place of the early bung and the earlier inverted plates, by a plug of sugar cane leaves thrust into the mouth of the vessel, and plastered over with a thick cap of white clay.

For securing the contents of smaller vessels the Egyptians had another method. This was by stretching over the mouth a piece of skin or beaten metal, which was then firmly tied down by a cord, the two ends and knot of which were covered by a pellet of clay, and impressed by a small stamp or scarab (see figs. 5, 6, and 7).

An illustration of a man actually engaged in the process of covering up a jar of honey has been preserved in a tomb at Abusîr; he is fastening the string around the vase, and above him is the legend, _Khetem bati_, “sealing honey” (see fig. 8).

The beautiful dolomite marble and carnelian vases found in the tomb of King Khasekhemui (_circa_ 3300 B.C.) at Abydos are secured in this way. Each of these has a cover of thick gold foil fitted over the top, and tied down with a double turn of twisted gold wire, over the tie of which a small lump of clay is fixed, which in this instance has not been impressed with a seal, but merely pressed together by the fingers. Generally the pellet of clay to be “sealed” was placed on the top of the jar (as in figs. 5 and 7), but sometimes it covered the knot at the side (as in fig. 9). The same manner of securing the mouth of a jar still survives in the way our liqueur bottles, etc., are often sealed, and in the way we close our jam pots, except that in the latter case we no longer find it necessary to attach a seal.

The contents of bags and sacks were also secured by means of the seal; a piece of cord was tied round the neck, the knot of which was immersed in a pellet of clay and “sealed” (see fig. 10). A large number of broken seals of this kind have been found in Egypt, and sealed bags containing gold dust and other materials are often figured in the ancient paintings of the tombs. To the custom of sealing bags Job alludes (xiv, 17). In the story of Hor-ded-ef we read of certain midwives who had assisted in bringing into the world a child, being rewarded by the father with “a bushel of barley,” which is straightway sent to the brewhouse to be kept under the midwives’ seal. Our modern post bags are rendered secure from being examined by unauthorised persons in exactly the same manner.

The Ancient Egyptians, it has already been remarked, were unacquainted with the use of locks and keys, hence we find that they employed their seals for the purpose of securing the doors of their houses and storerooms. These latter, indeed, were termed [Egyptian **] _Khetemu_, “sealed rooms,” and they are frequently alluded to in the ancient inscriptions:[8] Such storehouses in foreign lands were provision depôts for the Egyptian troops or garrisons. Government storehouses were, of course, in charge of officials who kept them under their seals. Nebuaiu (_circa_ 1500 B.C.), for instance, proudly boasts that the treasury of the Temple of Osiris was kept “under his signet ring,” and the Vezîr Rekhmara (_circa_ 1500 B.C.) tells us that it was his duty to “seal up all the precious things in the temple of Amen,”[9] and that all the bags of gold dust and other valuables were “under his signet.”[10] When a storeroom was opened, the official responsible for the things contained in it appeared in person and sealed it up again when the stores were taken out.

There are many passages in the papyri which tend to show how great was the care taken to prevent irresponsible hands from pilfering.[11] The storehouses of private people were probably in the care of the housewife, or some other woman of the household, for when scarab seals are discovered in graves, it has been noticed that they are usually found at the side of, or near to, the body of a female.[12] Thus it is probable that in Egypt, as in other countries, it was the matron of the household who had charge of the grain and other provisions, and her little string of seals has its direct lineal descendant in our modern housekeeper’s bunch of keys. “How happy the times,” wrote Pliny, “how truly innocent, in which no seal was ever put to anything; at the present day, on the contrary, our very food even and our drink have to be preserved from theft, through the agency of the ring.” The modern “wedding ring” originated in the custom of the man presenting his wife, on her marriage, with a seal, which she was to use for sealing up her stores of provisions, etc. At first these seals were worn suspended from a string of beads around the neck. Sometimes they were strung on a cord which was tied round the wrist, and at a later period they were secured to the finger by a piece of string or wire. This wire and seal developed into the signet-ring. Then, with the introduction of locks and keys, it was the key-ring that was given by the husband to his wife. These key-rings, however, were soon found to be too cumbersome to be worn with comfort on the finger, and so a plain band of metal was given to the bride with a key. “The key,” writes Cicero (Ph. 2. 28), “was given to the bride on entering her home, to signify that she was appointed mistress of the house (_mater familias_)”; it was, in fact, used by her to lock up her store-room, and in case she was divorced it was taken away from her. At the present day, if the ring is not forthcoming at a wedding, the key of the chancel door can be used instead.

The manner of sealing doors was very simple. In the case of single doors a wooden peg with projecting head was fixed in the jamb and another in the door (see fig. 11). When the door was closed the two pegs would be near to one another, so that a piece of string could be easily tied round them. This string having been securely fastened by a knot, the knot was then covered with clay, and the clay impressed by seal, thus making it impossible to open the door without destroying the seal or removing the pegs.