A seal of the Minoan civilization
The Aegean Civilization that established the first maritime civilization in its history also used seal. Its first seal was pyramid and prism-style in about 3000 B.C. Ivory and steatite were used as a seal material.
This slender triangular prism seal is engraved with a unique pictographic script of the Minoan civilization. This type of seal is very unique enough not to be seen in other region but is considered to be influenced by the culture of a cylinder seal to some extent.
By the way, at the dawn of the Minoan civilization, Mesopotamian cylinder seal was used temporarily. However, the format of seal has changed with the lapse of time and its shape was handed down to the next generation but it was engraved with no patterns around the surface of cylinder. Instead of it, a geometric pattern appeared at the both edge of a cylinder.
Therefore, it became impossible to roll a seal onto a wet clay tablet like Mesopotamian cylinder seal. A hole through which string passed was opened vertically from its side. In that sense, It is formally a cylinder seal but its function is a part of stamp style seal.
Ancient Greek and Roman seal
A seal of Minoan civilization was influenced by various type of seals propagated from various places like Mesopotamia by way of Syria and Anatolian peninsula by Hittite and Egypt all the way beyond sea. Crete island used to be a place of seal melting pot.
After the middle of Minoan civilization, miscellaneous seal was weeded out and as a result, oval shaped sea overwhelmed other seal. This is scarab seal without decorative scarab statue on its design. Decorative scarab seal was removed and its oval outline has remained in this period of time.
This seal which had been called “Scaraboid” in the sense of transformed scarab seal became not only mainstream of the Minoan seal culture but also it became prototype of Ancient Greek and Roman seal over the period of Mycenaean civilization which is the terminal stage of Aegean Civilization.
Usage of a seal was mainly for sealing door and jar and container like Oriental countries had done. An enormous number of clay block which had seal impressions from the ruin of Knussos palace located in Crete island.
As a general characteristics, occult power which had been initially believed to be hidden in a seal had a tendency to give a less and less influence to a seal over the period of time. Its primitive design also became gradually sophisticated and decorative and legal element was added to a seal.
In Greece, custom of using a seal established in B.C 450 to 350. In those days, Pericles’ Golden ages and Athena reached the peak of its activities. Ancient Greece has developed greatly in artistic fields as seen in Partenon palace. In this period of time,Greece was efflorescence of seal culture.
Art in classical antiquity is said to have been free style but ancient Greece seal was developed in its own unique way by parting with traditional Oriental seal culture.
Imaginary beast and animals drawn in seal face, which was tradition of ancient oriental art was disappeared from a seal face and portraits were often appeared instead of it.
Stone materials used for seals were valuable stones such as chalcedony, camellia, agate, quartz, amethyst, garnet, beryl, topaz, zircon.
Seals were used for sealing a box with valuable goods and important document in lieu of a key as of old and for also sealing a letter.
In ancient Egypt, as I wrote, rolled papyrus document was tied up with straps in its several places and seal was stamped on knots which was covered with clay. In case of ancient Greece, “Diptyque” used to be used for making documents confidential.
“Diptyque” is a tablet made of wood and covered with a layer of wax, often linked loosely to a cover tablet, as a “double-leaved” diptych. It was used as a reusable and portable writing surface in Antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages.
There was shallow box style in “Diptyque”. This is made of two boards and has a dent inside in which wax was staffed and had a space to equip small scriber to write on wax. Wax processing part of board was waterproofed note book and in contrast to paper, if leveling the wax after writing, it could be recycled so this was valued as memo book for writing shopping lists.
The way of sealing with “Diptique” is to seal up strap knot with melted wax after folding up two boards connected with straps and tying up on the other edge with strap. By means of this, contents of a letter can be confidential to a third party. Documents can be erased completely by heating it up.