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Ptolemaic Seal Impressions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

J. G. Milne
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Extract

The seal impressions here described were obtained in 1906 by Mr. C. T. Currelly for the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, from a native dealer in Egypt, who stated that they had been found in a large pot at Edfu. This account of their finding is possibly correct. The impressions are on lumps of clay, which have evidently been used for sealing rolls of papyrus: in most cases the back of the clay shows the traces of the papyrus fibres, and nearly all the lumps have longitudinal holes through them, in which calcined remains of papyrus binding can sometimes be discerned. Presumably these impressions are the remains of a collection of rolls similar to those found at Elephantine, which were bound round and secured by lumps of clay placed on the binding and sealed with signets: the rolls have been burnt, and thereby the clay was baked and the sealings preserved. As regards the find spot being Edfu, this is to some extent corroborated by the internal evidence of the types, more especially those of the Egyptian class, as will be seen below.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 36 , November 1916 , pp. 87 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1916

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References

1 See Rubensohn, , Elephantine Papyri, pp. 5 ff.Google Scholar and Pl. I. Perhaps the find of several hundred sealings mentioned by Rubensohn in his note (2) on p. 9 refers to this collection: it was reported to him as discovered at Edfu, in a pot, in the winter of 1905–6: he describes it, however, as belonging to the Roman period, which is a difficulty in identification, unless he had not had an opportunity of examining the sealings.

2 The Ny-Carlsberg head (cf. J.H.S. xxxiv. p. 295, Fig. 2) might very well be a portrait of the same person as this group.

3 The battered head from Athribis published by Petrie (Memphis i. Pl. XLV.) as of Euergetes II. is too much damaged to be used as a guide for identification of his portrait, even if it were certain that it is actually meant for him.

4 The Ptolemaic bronze coins which are sometimes described as having portraits of Cleopatra II. or III. (e.g. Svoronos 1382 and 1381) certainly do not represent any queen: they were probably struck for about a century with identical types, and Svoronos is right in calling the heads on the obverse Isis and Alexandria.

5 Berenice, the wife of Euergetes I., had some Iranian blood derived from her grandmother; but her portrait shows the regular Ptolemaic type.

6 The marriage of Antiochus II. with Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy Philadelphus, may be disregarded so far as any question of effect on racial types is concerned.