2. Button-shaped and Hemi-cylinder Seals.
Button-shaped seals.
A small, but very distinctive class of seal, cut in the shape of a button, with flat circular disc and loop at the back (see fig. 33), has recently been found in Egypt, and closely akin to this class is another, but much smaller one, the examples of which are cut in the form of a hemi-cylinder (sometimes with projecting base), and pierced through their length by a hole of | Hemi-cylinders.| sufficient size to admit of a fine piece of string being inserted (see fig. 34). Some of the button-shaped seals have ornamented backs: instead of the loop being plain as in fig. 39, it is cut in such a way as to represent two hawks’ heads, or the fore-parts of two lions back to back. Occasionally we also find specimens in the shape of a hippopotamus’ head (fig. 40).
Figs. 35 and 36.
How used and mounted.
The specimens of these two classes were used as stamps, and they are generally found either attached to a finger by a flaxen thread, or threaded to a string of beads, in which case they were worn around the neck as pendants.[[100]] Occasionally they have been found without any attachment, but simply held by the owner in his or her left hand.
Figs 37 and 38.
Their history.
These two classes of seal were in use in Egypt for a limited period only. They appear for the first time in graves belonging to the end of the Sixth Dynasty,[[101]] and during the period intervening between that time and the beginning of the Middle Kingdom they were the commonest form of seal in use.[[102]] Before the end of the Eleventh Dynasty they seem to have entirely disappeared.
Fig. 39.
Fig. 40.
The subjects engraved on (1) button-shaped seals.
The patterns[[103]] that we find engraved upon button-shaped seals are distinctive, and they are certainly not Upper Egyptian in their origin. Hieroglyphs very rarely occur (cf. fig. 41), and when they do, they are clearly imitations of Egyptian characters made apparently by foreigners. The motives for some of the designs are clear; thus a common type is that which has already been noticed as occurring on a class of early cylinder-seal—the linked forequarters of gazelles and other animals symmetrically arranged (cf. figs. 39, 40); sometimes also we find a curious running figure of a man (fig. 42, and cf. fig. 35), and occasionally a tortoise, a lizard (cf. fig. 43), or a spider (cf. fig. 44). Conventional and geometrical patterns are also found, the meander[[104]] and the radiated disc being perhaps the most frequent. See also figs. 45-6.
Figs. 41, 42 and 43.
(2) Hemi-cylinders.
The patterns occurring on the hemi-cylinder seals are nearly all geometrical, as shown in figs. 47-57, but the human figure is sometimes represented, as in fig. 34.
Figs. 44, 45 and 46.
Figs. 47, 48 and 49.
Figs. 50 and 51.
Historical importance of button-shaped seals.
The button-shaped seals are of considerable interest to the student of comparative archaeology, and they are certainly not Upper Egyptian in their origin. The earlier forms have, moreover, no affinity to the Mycenaean series of designs, and, as Mr. Petrie[[105]] has remarked, the spirals, butterfly, cuttlefish and other characteristic types are absent. On the other hand, they have several links which connect them to the Greek Island and Cretan class of seals, and also to some found in Italy, from which we may perhaps infer that they are of common origin.[[106]] An almost exact reproduction of some of these steatite buttons in clay actually occurs in the Italian terramare, and in the Ligurian cave deposits of neolithic and æneolithic periods. Mr. A. Evans writes, “The clay stamp from the terramare of Montale in the Modenese, represented in fig. 52, the top of which is now broken, was probably once perforated, is not only analogous in form but bears a simple geometrical design almost identical with that on an early steatite button-seal from Knossos.”[[107]]
Fig. 52.
Material.
Specimens of button-seals have been found in gold, amethyst, carnelian, lapis lazuli, black steatite, steatite glazed blue or green, ivory, bone, and blue or green glazed pottery. The hemi-cylinders are only as yet known in steatite glazed blue or green.