4 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. 69 



by the engraved scarab, though as an archaism it was not wholly dis- 

 carded there as late as the twenty-second dj^nasty (945-745 B. C.).^ 



It has been ingeniously suggested that the form of the two great 

 groups of seals was derived from a small scratched pebble and a 

 piece of notched reed, respectively ; the first was the original of the 

 stamp seal (cone, scarab, etc.), the second the prototype of the 

 cylinder seal, for nothing would be simpler than to take a short 

 section of a reed and cut on it one's own private mark. This reed 

 then gave shape and design to the permanent stone C3dinder seal, 

 pierced like the reed through its axis of length. The step between 

 cutting one's private mark upon a section of reed and replacing such 

 a material with an engraved stone cylinder was a short one.** 



" The earliest printing press," remarked Doctor Ward, wdio had 

 made the study and elucidation of oriental seals his special field, 

 " was a seal, and the cylinder seal may be said to have been an archaic 

 rotary press." ^ And Newberry adds : " From the invention of the 

 simple seal to the complex printing press with its movable types 

 appears a long way to travel, but that we have the germ of this great 

 invention in the simple seal is obvious when we come to think of it. 

 The old Egyptian or Babylonian who first took the impression of his 

 signet on a lump of plastic clay, had discovered the principle of 

 printing, though it took the human mind many hundred years be- 

 fore the next great step was taken, that of smearing some black or 

 colored substance upon a seal and taking a ' print ' of it on plaster 

 and in ink on a papyrus." * 



MATERIAL OF THE SEALS 



The material of which seals were made cover a large variety. 

 The earliest seals, prior to the kings of Akkad (about 2,800 B. C.) 

 were of soft material, as the columella of certain shells picked- up 

 on the shores of the Persian Gulf, bone, ivory, alabaster, marble, 

 serpentine, and steatite. Lapis-lazuli was a favorite material from 

 the earliest period. Later, about the middle of the third millennium 

 B. C, harder materials, as rock crystal, jasper, saphirine, and others 

 appear. Hematite was the most common stone used for the seals 

 of the common people. The Assyrian seals, both cylinders and 

 stamps, are largely of fine material, or what is termed semiprecious 

 stones, such as chalcedony, carnelian, and onyx, but also seals of 

 composite mass (false lapis-lazuli) occur. 



5 Compare P. E. Newberry, Scarabs, p. 43, and William Hayes Ward, The Seal Cylinders 

 of Western Asia, 1910, p. 1. 



" Compare C. W. King, Handbook of Engraved Gems, 1885, p. 4 : Newberry, Scarabs. 

 p. 11 ; Ward, The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, p. 4 ; and Scribner's Magazine, January, 

 1887, p. 80. 



' W. H. Ward, Scribner's Magazine, January, 1887, p. 80. 



® P. E. Newberry, Scarabs, p. 11. 



