Stamp seal

The stamp seal (also impression seal) is a common seal die, frequently carved from stone, known at least since the 6th millennium BC (Halaf culture¹) and probably earlier. The dies were used to impress their picture or inscription into soft, prepared clay and sometimes in sealing wax.

The oldest stamp seals were button-shaped objects with primitive ornamental forms chiseled onto them.² The stamp seals were replaced in the 4th millennium BC by cylinder seals that had to be rolled over the soft clay to leave an imprint.¹ From the 12th century BC the previous designs were largely abandoned in favor of amphora stamps.³ Romans introduced their signaculum around the first century BC;³ Byzantine maintained the tradition in their commercial stamps.⁴

In antiquity the stamp seals were common, largely because they served to authenticate legal documents, such as tax receipts, contracts, wills and decrees.

The Indus stamp-seals probably had a different function from the stamp seals of the Minoan civilization, as they typically have script characters, with still undeciphered associations.

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  Stamp seal of an Egyptian named:
  Meru-the Answerer of Horus
  (Brooklyn Museum)
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  Stamp seals (bottom row), cylinder seals (top row)
• 
  Signaculum PRIMIT ("first")
• 
  An impression of a cast copper-alloy seal matrix of medieval date (14th century AD)