In Egypt, a cylinder seal started to be used at the period of ancient Egyptian first dynasty at the time of terminal stage of Uruk.
Initially, a seal having spread in Egypt was in imitation of Mesopotamian cylinder seal and used for sealing jar with a treasure. Egyptian unique seal was invented not long after that. A jar on which impression of a cylinder seal was engraved with a Egyptian King name in those period was excavated at Tombs of the King.
Invention of writing in Egypt is said to have been later than that of Mesopotamian. Its character was called hieroglyphs. In short, Egypt had highly‐developed own unique culture in contrast to other Oriental countries. These facts influenced the usage of a cylinder seal.
Compared with a cylinder seal made of shell or stones in oriental countries , ancient Egyptian seal was made of hard wood and ivory by its unique manufacturing process. Initially, people and animals were engraved on its impression but hieroglyph was appeared on its impression gradually.
However, compared to the case of other Oriental countries, Egyptian cylinder seal custom was not long-lasting very much. Instead of it, a new seal appeared at the period of 6th dynasty of Uruk , which was scarabs.
Scarabs
Scarab is a dung beetle worshiped as a symbol of the solar deity in Egypt for generations. Scarab was seen as the same as the solar deity called “Khepri” in ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptian worshiped dung beetle’s behavior of rolling dung as mystery and symbolized its behavior as God conducting sun by linking dung to the sun.
Scarab seal is flat 1 to 3 cm oval and the backside of seal face is sculpted with a statue of scarab.
Anyways, in Egypt, very unique Scarab seal was used right after a cylinder seal went out of use. It is partly because Egyptians didn’t allow their pride to use foreign seals but the main reason is that papyrus was introduced as writing material in various regions in Egypt widely instead of a clay tablet.
Sealing documents made of papyrus
- Tear off the bark of reed which grows in the waters of the Nile.
- Cut its stalk into slices and stack alternately those slices in rows and columns
- Add water and push those down to solidify
- Dry it out
Light, strong and easy-to-write papyrus was important importation product for Egyptian government monopoly in the period of ancient Egypt and Greece and Roman empire. Papyrus having used as writing material from 3000 B.C to 10th century became a word origin of “paper” in English.
Stamping scarab seal on documents directly was much easier than rolling a cylinder seal on a clay. Clay tablet document used in Mesopotamia was quite solid but it needed not only a wide space to store but also was too inconvenient to carry and it is impossible to bind clay tablets together over several pages like a book because of the nature of its material.
In contrast, papyrus is as light as paper so it can be carried freely and it is pretty easy to take and preserve by scrolling and folding papyrus documents and to keep its confidentiality by simply stamping scarab seal on a wet clay stuck on the knot of strap tying documents.
Ring-type scarab seal
In New Kingdom of Egypt (1570 BC to 1070 BC), ring type seal started to be used along with Scarab seal. This ring type seal originated from Scarab seal. Scarab seal had a hole horizontally. People passed string through a hole to hang it from their necks and wear it around their arms. Scarab seal was basically small enough to carry easily so if threading a firm wire through a hole to make it ring-type, it was safely possible to wear it on your finger.
Simple ring-type seal with wire ring arm was rotary type (scarab rotates around its axis of wire threaded through a hole) but gradually ring arm changed into fixed type at the same time scarab seal went out of use and auspicious quotes and individual name appeared on seal face where scarab was sculpted. People could stamp seal as wearing the ring.