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A unique documentary problem
A seal presents us with the unique feature of being, in effect, two objects in one.
- The seal itself was, for the ancients, the first and most immediate object of perception.
- But, at the same time, the seal included in itself a second object, namely the rolling which displayed a scene.
An apt modern analogy would be a computer, a tablet or a telephone. What is visible at first glance is the physical object, which may be personalized in a variety of ways (especially telephones). But the display on the screen is what ultimately matters.
The documentary problem is that we need to provide evidence for both “objects,” the seal and its inner soul, as it were.
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The image
The ancient equivalent of our software was to roll the seal on a clay support. We will talk below about the physical nature of the support.
In a sense, we may say that we need a software equivalent to render the “inner” object of a seal
rollings
photos
drawings
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The evidentiary problem
The problem is compounded by the fact that in most cases (in Mozan, at any rate) we ;only have the display
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Drawings
The standard rendering of the rolling of a seal is through a drawing that gives the outline of the figures carved in the negative on the seal.
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outline of kt2
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Occasionally, the figures are shown in relief
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| A distinctive style that we have introduced is to render the background in solid black, so as to place in sharper relieft the outline of the figures.
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