03. SEALS & SCARABS
Since antiquity and into modern times, individuals authorized documents with personal and/or adminstrative sealings. We have found a wide variety of seals and scarabs in the form of rings or pendants or amulets, used to impress identifying marks on clay tablets or wax seals on papyri correspondence  For this week, our resources derive from the Smithsonian Institution collections of Ancient Near Eastern seals and Egyptian amulets, some from the Freer|Sackler (F|S) galleries of the National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA) and others from the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH).

learning goals:

1. identify unique accession numbers
2. catalog artifacts by standard categorical descriptions (e.g. material, size, color, decoration)
3. catalog artifacts by type (e.g. stamp, cylinder, amuletic)
4. catalog artifacts by glyptic (“carving”) or narrative style
5. record provenance (point of origin) whenever possible–particularly archoeologcal context
6. include results of laboratory analysis and/or conservation, whenever possible
7. compare to SESPOA (Sceaux-cylindres du Proche-Orient ancien)
8. compare to DigANES (Digitizing Ancient Near Eastern Seals and Sealings)

Pick four seals by navigating through the Freer|Sackler (F|S) catalog of the Smithsonian Institution.
Limit your selection to New Kingdom Egypt / Late Bronze Age Mesopotamia (ca.1600-1200 BCE). Find four LB/NK seals (or sealings) that meet the following criteria:

• provide the acession number (unique museum identifying number, starting with “F” for “Freer”)
• provide formal or stylistic comments from the online description
• provide the provenance/archeological context, or note absence and estimated point of origin
• of the four, include least one from Egypt & one from Mesopotamia & one from father afield,
  namely, anywhere from Anatolia (mod. Turkey) to Cyprus to Central Asia (mod. Afghanistan)
• include at least one stamp, at least one cylinder, and at least one scarab (or amulet)
• include at least three different materials (e.g. bronze, hematite, carnelian, etc.)
• include and explain at least one narrative/figurative scene
• include and explain at least two related seals/sealings (parallel by theme, material, provenance, etc), from any of the webpages listed here

Use the search function ("Late Bronze") and/or the map to collect four seals matching the criteria.

1. FIRST LB/NK SEAL/SCARAB
a) photo of object (ancient) scarab/seal
b) sealing/impression (modern)
date/period:
provenance/point of origin:
form/style/motif:
inscription (if present):
material:
accession number:
parallel/comparison (how is it similar)?

2. SECOND LB/NK SEAL/SCARAB
a) photo of object (ancient) scarab/seal
b) sealing/impression (modern)
date/period:
provenance/point of origin:
form/style/motif:
inscription (if present):
material:
accession number:
parallel/comparison (how is it similar)?

3. THIRD LB/NK SEAL/SCARAB
a) photo of object (ancient) scarab/seal
b) sealing/impression (modern)
date/period:
provenance/point of origin:
form/style/motif:
inscription (if present):
material:
accession number:
parallel/comparison (how is it similar)?

4. FOURTH LB/NK SEAL/SCARAB
a) photo of object (ancient) scarab/seal
b) sealing/impression (modern)
date/period:
provenance/point of origin:
form/style/motif:
inscription (if present):
material:
accession number:
parallel/comparison (how is it similar)?

IMPRESSION OF THE IMPRESSIONS (+/- 100 words)
Did you notice any significant patterns?
What do these seals/scarabs seem to say about indidual or regional identity or status?
How well do the databases provide usable, searchable, sortable information?

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Fill out the .pdf worksheet (here) with the information above