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.