Glossary Society, writing and trade
Cylinder seal
A small engraved stone cylinder that, rolled across wet clay, leaves a continuous impression; used to mark ownership and authority.
Cylinder seals were invented in Mesopotamia and spread across the Near East. The first stratified examples on Cyprus belong to Late Cypriot IA, and locally made seals follow soon after, cut in a distinctive Cypriot style; some older Syrian and Babylonian seals were recut on the island. Their adoption marks the island's emerging elites taking up a Near Eastern habit of administration and status.
Cypriot-style seals were used on legal tablets at Ugarit, and rolled on the relief friezes of Late Bronze Age storage jars: at Alassa more than 150 pithos fragments carry cylinder-seal impressions. See Ugarit and the Levant.
Full entry: Ugarit and the Levant
Related terms
- Scarab
An amulet or seal carved in the shape of a dung beetle, sacred in Egypt, with a design or inscription cut into its flat underside.
- Relief
Decoration that projects from a flat background, either carved in stone or modelled and applied in clay, in contrast to painted or incised work.
- Levant
The lands along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, roughly modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, facing Cyprus to the east.