4. Miscellaneous Forms of Seals.
Miscellaneous forms.
Besides scarabaei, other forms of seals are met with in Egypt. Many of them have little models of men or animals on the back, as human-heads, symbolic eyes, hippopotami, lions, hedgehogs, ducks, fish, frogs, flies, crocodiles; while not a few are shaped like cowries.
A large number are also cut in geometrical forms, tablet-shaped, squares, rectangles, ovals, cubes, and cones. Like the scarabs, they are all pierced, through their long axis or diameter, with a narrow cylindrical hole, and were similarly mounted.
Figs. 83 and 84.
Animals as devices.
The specimen illustrated in fig. [83], now in the MacGregor Collection, bears a private name upon the base. The material is steatite, beautifully carved. The figure is that of a male, squatting in the familiar attitude, his hands upon his knees, and wearing a full wig. The date is late in the Twelfth Dynasty. Fig. 84 is another illustration of the same motive, dating from the Eighteenth Dynasty.
Fig. 85.
Fig. 86.
Fig. 87.
Figs. 88 and 89.
Figs. 90, 91 and 92.
Animal forms are illustrated in the figs. 85, 86, 87, 88, 89. The first represents a naturalistic group, a cow suckling its calf, exquisitely cut in steatite. It is in the collection of Captain Timmins in Cairo. The design upon the base is analogous in its symmetry and the devices employed to the steatite stamp, fig. [94], in the same collection, which probably dates from about the Eleventh Dynasty. The two stamps, figs. 86 and 87, are very important, one of them being dated by the cartouche of Mentuhetep of the Eleventh Dynasty, the other by its analogy, and by the device of a running figure in line frequently employed upon the button-seals (fig. [42], and cf. fig. [28]). Hornets are employed upon the Karnak three-sided seal, fig. [86], which is probably of earlier date, about the close of the Sixth Dynasty. A further example of this |Miscellaneous devices.| character, being a ram with horns, is in the MacGregor Collection: upon the base is an interesting pattern in coils, dating probably from the end of the Twelfth Dynasty. A great number of seals with cats (fig. [88]), hedgehogs, hippopotami (fig. [89]), and fish (fig. [90]), date from the time of Thothmes III in the Eighteenth Dynasty, while those with ducks (figs. 91, 92), frogs, and flies, seem to be slightly later, dating from the reign of Amenhetep III.
Fig. 93.
Fig. 94.
Figs. 95 and 96.
Fig. 97.
Fig. 98.
Figs. 99, 100 and 101.
Figs. 102 and 103.
A number of large seals are oval in form; one of these, with a device of animals incised upon the back, shown in fig. [93], bears upon the base the blundered cartouche of Amenemhat III. One of rectangular form (fig. [94]) is rather of the nature of a stamp, being without decoration upon the back other than the necessary suspension hole in the attachment, while upon the base is the device previously described as belonging to the period which precedes the Middle Kingdom—between the Sixth and Eleventh Dynasties, from its analogy to the button-seals of that time. Other stamps are illustrated in figs. 95 and 96, having oval bases. They date from the Seventeenth Dynasty, bearing the names of Seqen-en-ra and Se-Amen. Another stamp (fig. [97]) of larger size, has a simple handle down the middle of the back. The device in this case represents a number of captives or votives below the emblem of Anubis. This class of stamp, used generally for the sealing up of tomb-doors, as in the case of the tomb of Thothmes IV at Thebes, seems to date from the Eighteenth Dynasty. Fig. 98 represents another common form of the same period, itself dating to the reign of the emblem upon it, Thothmes III. A less usual class, dating from the Twelfth Dynasty, is represented in fig. [99]. The back in this instance is plain, the form of the stamp resembling a slice from a sphere, with the device upon the plane face. A hole pierces the thickness. Figs. 100 and 101, represent other objects of this class, which from its Aegean analogies is of peculiar importance. The former specimen is dated, from an inscription on its back, to the reign of Usertsen III; the coil device is employed in each case. Two interesting examples are shown in figs. 102 and 103, the one being of the Eighteenth Dynasty, from its cutting and its glaze, the other of the Nineteenth Dynasty, from the cartouche of Rameses II incised upon it. A late example is that shown in fig. [104], and is a common type of the period of the Saïte renaissance in the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. The inscription gives the name of Tahuti son of Aahmes, chief of the scribes of the temple. It is of pottery, glazed green, and is in the Collection of Captain Timmins.
Figs. 104 and 105.
Two typical stamps of the Thirtieth Dynasty, one in bronze, the other in pottery, are pictured in figs. 105 and 106. They are both without device upon the plain handle of suspension. The one fig. [105] bears the name of the Royal son Za-hapi-amen; the other bears the name of king Kheper-ka-Ra, otherwise Nekht-neb-ef, with whom the list of Egypt’s kings comes to a close.
Fig. 106.