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Sealing Theories and Practices in the Ancient Near East

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Sealing Theories and Practices in the Ancient Near East SEALING THEORIES AND PRACTICES IN THE ANCIENT ABSTRACTS NEAR EAST & BIOS MARCH 5–6 2020 THE 16TH ANNUAL UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ORIENTAL INSTITUTE SEMINAR ABSTRACTS he seal is to the ancient Near East what the social security number and the lucky charm are to our modern societies: a key element that proves one exists within an Tadministration; an object preciously preserved because it carries identity, validity, and even magical forces. Sealing was a common practice in the ancient Near East, but the associated customs and uses across different societies varied. The study of both its shared and diverse & aspects is crucial for understanding the socio- administrative functioning of ancient societies. Through its many facets, sealing touches BIOS several aspects of ancient societies: political, administrative, sociological, cultural, and artistic. To understand this critical source of knowledge, a multi-disciplinary and multi-documentary approach is necessary. Forty years after the ground-breaking study by McGuire Gibson and Robert Biggs,* this conference therefore brings together scholars from different areas of study: from Anatolia to China and from ancient Mesopotamia to the first centuries of Islam. This spatial, temporal, and disciplinary breadth allows a more complete picture of the sources and methods of analysis available in understanding the socio- administrative practices, systems of thought, and beliefs surrounding seals and sealings. *Gibson, McGuire, and Robert D. Biggs. Seals and Sealing in the Ancient Near East. Bibliotheca Mesopotamia, vol. 6. Malibu: Undena Publications, 1977. THE 16TH ANNUAL UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ORIENTAL INSTITUTE SEMINAR 3 ALAIN BRESSON Thus, publications of “Byzantine Respondant, University of seals” are in fact publications Chicago, Department of Classics of imprinted objects. Byzantine emperors, aristocrats, and mem- BIO: Alain Bresson is the Robert bers of the different adminis- O. Anderson Distinguished trations had boulloteria—tools Service Professor in the engraved and struck in order to Department of Classics and print text and images on lead, the Department of History at silver, or gold circular blanks. the University of Chicago and a Both Roman and early member at the Oriental Institute. Byzantine material cultures His research focuses on ancient also had stamping material, but economy and is developed in the Byzantinists hesitate as to what framework both of the standard to call them, and most call them categories of economics (capital, bread stamps, which is again PAUL COPP labor, and technological level) somewhat confusing, as they University of Chicago, and of the New Institutional were used on clay as well as on East Asian Languages and Economics paradigm, with a spe- bread. This presentation focus- Civilizations cial interest in the evolution of es on such objects. Roman and SEALS IN CHINESE RELIGIOUS institutions as a major factor of Byzantine stamping material is PRACTICE: METAPHOR AND economic development. He has interesting for more than one MATERIALITY recently published The Making reason: it provides information (Session 3 | Friday, 10:30) of the Ancient Greek Economy on onomastics and iconography, (Princeton University Press, and it often follows a religious A BSTRACT : Seals—that is, 2016) and is preparing a new agenda. The Bibliothèque na- stamps imagined through log- book on coinage as the specific tionale de France owns a col- ics of identity—were small but form of money in the ancient lection of such objects, given in revealing features of religious Greek world. He also publishes part by a German scholar work- thought and practice in pre- regularly on the history, epigra- ing before 1870 at the Louvre modern China. As physical ma- phy, and numismatics of various Museum and in the service of trices carved from various kinds regions of the ancient world, es- Napoleon III. Examples illustrat- of wood or cast in bronze, or pecially Asia Minor. ing the diversity of such objects as the bodily gestures known and their possible use will be to us mainly by the Sanskrit taken from this collection. BÉATRICE CASEAU name mudrā (literally, “seal”), they were potent tools of ritual- Sorbonne Université, Faculté BIO: Béatrice Caseau is pro- des Lettres ists, whether Daoist, Buddhist, fessor of Byzantine history at or otherwise. Arising in good STAMPING MATERIAL AS Sorbonne University and was part from these physical prac- SEALS IN ROMAN AND the director of a research clus- tices (and in turn transforming BYZANTINE MATERIAL ter on religions and society in them), conceptual images fea- CULTURE the Mediterranean (2015–2019). turing seals were just as potent (Session 3 | Friday, 9:30) She is now a member of the in Chinese religious thought. Institut Universitaire de France. This presentation explores the ABSTRACT: What Byzantinists Her research focuses on the his- ways that both forms, taken to- call Byzantine seals are in fact tory of the Byzantine world, and gether—ritual and conceptual— imprinted objects, and there especially on late antique and formed complex assemblages is some confusion in the vo- Byzantine Christianity. She has that reveal much about the na- cabulary used. The word “seal” published on a range of top- ture of religious practice in Tang in most other cultures is used ics, including the history of the and tenth-century China. to indicate the stone or metal senses, religious violence, mate- stamp with which an impres- rial culture, food culture, and the BIO: Paul Copp is associate sion is made, while among history of religious practices. In professor in Chinese religion Byzantinists, the word “seal” is 2015 she published Nourritures and thought in the Department used for the bulla on which text terrestres, nourritures célestes: of East Asian Languages and and images are impressed rath- la culture alimentaire à Byzance Civilizations (University of er than the stamping tool itself. (Paris: ACHCByz). Chicago). His research focuses 4 SEALING THEORIES AND PRACTICES IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST on the history of religious prac- carrying texts in Aramaic script plier and receiver. 3) Parallel- tice in China and eastern Central and language; and those car- seal, having two seals—the seal Asia during the period stretch- rying no text (what we call on the left edge occurring ad- ing from the eighth to the thir- uninscribed documents), only ditionally on another surface, teenth centuries. He is most in- the impression(s) of seals. All generally indicating shared re- terested in the study of visual Aramaic and uninscribed doc- sponsibility in a transaction. 4) and material sources, especially uments are sealed, while ap- Multiple-seal, having three to in the manuscripts, xylographs, proximately 85 percent of the five seals placed on various sur- and objects of personal reli- Elamite documents are sealed. faces—the exact significance of gious practice, such as amulets This paper briefly surveys this sealing pattern being a sub- and seals, discovered at the “silk the results of research carried ject of some discussion. road” sites of Dunhuang, Turfan, out in 2018 and 2019 on the un- Fortunately, some forty seals and Khara-khoto, as well as in inscribed documents, exploring occur on all three document tombs from across the region. the possible implications of this types. These seals are especial- In 2014 he published The Body research for our understanding ly critical in providing insights Incantatory, a study of the na- of uninscribed documents as a into the functions of both un- ture and history of Buddhist distinct category and the rela- inscribed and Aramaic docu- incantation and amulet prac- tionships between and among ments. Additionally, some 161 tices in Tang China centered in the three document types. This seals that occur on the Elamite archaeological evidence. He is paper thus updates previous documents also occur on the currently writing two books fo- summaries published in 2008 uninscribed documents. In some cused in different ways in the and 2017. instances, two seals that occur study of religious seals in China. To date, almost 2,200 unin- together on Elamite documents The first studies seals in Chinese scribed documents have been also occur together on unin- religious practice both for what fully cataloged (out of a corpus scribed documents, thus virtu- they show about Chinese re- of some 3,500 tablets). All un- ally ensuring that we are dealing ligious history, and as a case inscribed documents have been with the same types of transac- study of the nature of “mate- read in a preliminary manner. Of tions, the one bearing text, the rial religion” more broadly. The course, the principal obstacle to other not. our understanding of this par- second book is a paleographic Lastly, the four most com- ticular document type is the and material-historical study monly occurring seals on the lack of any text written on the of the worlds of anonymous uninscribed documents, PFS 48, tablets. Sealing protocols and ninth and tenth century Chinese PFS 75, PFS 142, and PFS 535*, the seals themselves thus con- Buddhists, evidenced by manu- all also occur on the Elamite stitute the most critical resourc- script handbooks and liturgies tablets. These four seals may es in linking these documents to from Dunhuang. thus be especially critical in de- the archive as a whole. termining the principal adminis- It is now clear that the seal- trative sphere of the uninscribed MARK B. GARRISON ing protocols (i.e., the system documents within the agency Trinity University, Department determining where seals are ap- represented by the Persepolis of Art and History plied to tablets and what seal Fortification Archive as a whole. placement indicates within the SEALS AND DOCUMENT administrative system) are con- TYPES IN THE PERSEPOLIS BIO: Mark B. Garrison holds the sistent across the entire archive. FORTIFICATION ARCHIVE Alice Pratt Brown Distinguished There are four sealing protocols: (Session 2 | Thursday, 2:45) Professorship in art history in 1) Single-seal, generally indicat- the Department of Art and Art A BSTRACT : The Persepolis ing a high level of administra- History at Trinity University in tive oversight.
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