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"Cylinder seals for the lower classes". Ein Merkmal der Provinzkultur des ausgehenden Alten Reiches?
Journal Contribution - Journal Article
Egyptologists have paid much attention to
inscribed administrative seals and their impressions. By
contrast, the so-called figure seals, which render no or
hardly any text, but instead use icons and signs inspired
on hieroglyphs which however yield no coherent sense,
have received far less attention. Usually this material is
related to the lower strata of society. According to current
interpretations, it is rooted in the Egyptian culture of the
later Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period. The
phenomenon would be a corollary of the decreasing prominence
of central state authority in this era. Proceeding
from a number of recent early Old Kingdom finds from
al-Shaykh Saʽīd/Wādī Zabaydā, the present article argues
that a) figure seals were continually in use from the late
Predynastic until the late Old Kingdom and b) different
from what is commonly assumed, stamp seals were in
existence long before the late Old Kingdom. The article
challenges the relationship between these object categories
and developments specifically in late Old Kingdom
Egypt.
Journal: Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde
ISSN: 0044-216X
Issue: 2
Volume: 145
Pages: 187 - 204
Publication year:2018
Accessibility:Open