Scarabs

by Percy E. Newberry

3. Origin of the Seal.

Origin of the seal.

In his Hand-book of Engraved Gems,[^[4]] King has stated his belief that the use of the seal was almost coeval with the very institution of the right of private property, and this seems to be well borne out by what we actually know of its early history. All the evidence from Babylonia and Egypt available as to its original use appears to point in one direction, that it was first employed for securing household stuff and other moveable property. In the earlier stages of civilization this consisted mainly of grain, honey, etc., always liable to be pilfered by the dishonest slave, or by smaller hands addicted to picking and stealing. If the proprietor, therefore, wished to keep his stores of food intact, it was necessary that he should adopt some means of checking the pilferer, and the idea early occurred to him that if he placed his little store in a jar or other vessel, and covered the mouth of it with a plaster of mud or clay, it might be protected to a certain degree against the thief. But merely plastering the mouth with mud or clay was not enough to preserve the contents from a skilful plunderer, for he might easily, and without fear of immediate detection, remove a capping, steal the contents of a jar, put on another plaster of mud, and leave no trace of his theft until the jar was opened by its owner. It was obvious therefore that a capping of clay alone was not sufficient. Now it is probable that the mud used in the process of covering the mouth of the vessel would often be rolled or smeared flat with a piece of stick, a joint of a reed, or a flat-bottomed pebble. Many of these objects must have had natural markings on them which would have left impressions on the clay, while these impressions, we can hardly doubt, were early noticed by the primitive store owner, and their condition served to tell him whether or not his closed jars had been tampered with. In this connection it is interesting to note that Aristophanes (Thesmo., 424-428), when referring to the custom of securing doors by sealing them, alludes to certain [Greek: thripêdesta sphragidia], which were worm-eaten bits of wood used as rude seals. He speaks of them as having supplanted the simple seals of olden days, but they ought rather to be considered as a return to the early type of “reed” seal. (Muller, Archäol., I. Kunst., 97, 2.) From the natural markings upon the objects employed to smooth the clay, the transition was easy to some definite device scratched around the circumference of the stick or reed, or upon the surface of the stone or pebble, by the owner, and appropriated to himself as his own peculiar mark. But as these markings or devices would have had little weight with a determined thief, we can hardly doubt that, in Babylonia at any rate, they became early imbued with a magical signification: so that their real power would be moral rather than physical. The reasoning of the lawyers of the Middle Ages regarding the sealing of contracts was that a seal attracts and excites caution in illiterate persons, and thereby operates as a security against fraud.[^[5]]

The simple scratchings that we find on so many of the early Egyptian pots were the possessors’ marks; indeed, King contends that “this instinct of possession extending itself to the assumption of exclusive ownership in certain configurations of lines, or rude delineations of natural objects, is a universal impulse of man’s nature, and one found existing amongst all savage nations when first discovered, wheresoever the faintest trace of social life and polity have begun to develop themselves.” A great number of these signs Professor Petrie has preserved in his various records of explorations. (Cf. his Naqada, p. 44.) Thus the Red Indian has besides the tribal mark, that of the individual (his special totem), wherewith to identify his own property, or the game he may kill. The South Sea Islander carries the tattooed pattern that distinguishes his particular family, imprinted upon his own skin, and also draws the same upon his credentials like a regular coat of arms. It is therefore in these markings firstly scratched on pots, and next on rude seals, that we have the very beginnings of writing; but a long period probably elapsed before these primitive signs were combined together to form words. The designs on these seals were probably at first rough configurations of lines, which sufficiently served their purpose if they could be readily identified by the owner; but after a time these primitive figures seem to have given place to rude delineations of natural objects which expressed the name of the owner, like the Greek coins of Rhodes (a rose); of Melitaea (a bee), and were consequently looked upon as his particular mark. We have not as yet got back in Egypt to such primitive forms, but on Greek gems and coins this type parlant, “figured speech,” is well known.

The original forms of the two great groups of Egyptian seals we have in the piece of notched reed and in the small scratched pebble; the first the true prototype of the cylinder, both in form and in mode of application; the second as clearly the original of the stamp seal. Simple as the invention of these two forms and the art of sealing may now appear, the discovery that an impression of a seal could be obtained by pressing it on clay or other plastic substance was nevertheless one of the most momentous that has yet been made, and the seal-impression furthermore suggested the idea of decoration in bas-relief. From the invention of the simple seal to the complex printing-press with its moveable types appears a long way to travel, but that we have the germ of this great invention in the simple seal is obvious when we come to think of it. The old Egyptian or Babylonian who first took an impression of his signet on a lump of plastic clay, had discovered the principle of printing, though it took the human mind many hundred years before the next great step was made, that of smearing some black or coloured substance upon the seal and taking a “print” of it on plaster, as in the tomb of Thothmes IV (circa B.C. 1400), and in ink on a papyrus of the Ptolemaic age.