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Storage jars of many shapes and sizes were in widespread use in the ancient world, transporting and storing agricultural products such as wine and oil, crucial to agriculture, economy, trade and subsistence. From the late 8th to the 2nd century BCE, the oval storage jars typical of Judah were often stamped or otherwise marked: in the late 8th and early 7th century BCE with lmlk stamp impressions, later in the 7th century with concentric circle incisions or rosette stamp impressions, in the 6th century, after the fall of Jerusalem, with lion stamp impressions, and in the Persian, Ptolemaic and Seleucid periods (late 6th–late 2nd centuries BCE) with yhwd stamp impressions. At the same time, several ad hoc systems of stamp impressions appeared: “private” stamp impressions were used on the eve of Sennacherib’s campaign, mw ṣ h stamp impressions after the destruction of Jerusalem, and yršlm impressions after the establishment of the Hasmonean state. While administrative systems that stamped storage jars are known elsewhere in the ancient Near East, the phenomenon in Judah is unparalleled in its scale, variety and continuity, spanning a period of some 600 years without interruption. This is the first attempt to consider the phenomenon as a whole and to develop a unified theory that would explain the function of these stamp impressions and shed new light on the history of Judah during six centuries of subjugation to the empires that ruled the region—as a vassal kingdom in the age of the Assyrian, Egyptian, and Babylonian empires and as a province under successive Babylonian, Persian, Ptolemaic, and Seleucid rule.

Tepe Gheshlagh is one of the major sites with deposits of the Chalcolithic period in the east of the Central Zagros. The central question in the present study was the administrative system and ownership in the Chalcolithic period. With a descriptive-analytical method, an attempt was made to expound on Gheshlagh’s glyptic assemblage that attest to the existence of an ownership system and commercial exchanges. A structural analysis of the glyptic iconography suggested that each of the linear, circular, or repeating patterns were less mere personal insignias intended to exclude the possibility of alteration or forgery than they were marks belonging to a pre-literate system where each sign/symbol stood for individual commodity types that were transported or exchanged as such. At the same time, the composition of these widely varying geometric motifs followed certain conventions. Tepe Gheshlagh je eno najpomembnejših najdišč bakrene dobe na vzhodnem območju osrednjega Zagrosa. Ključni raziskovalni vprašanji naše študije sta organizacija administrativnih sistemov in koncept lastništva v tem obdobju. S pomočjo deskriptivno-analitične metode podrobneje obravnavamo zbirko pečatnikov iz Gheshlagha, ki dokazujejo sistem lastništva in trgovinske izmenjave. Strukturna analiza ikonografije pečatnikov kaže, da linearni, krožni in ponavljajoči se vzorci niso bili zgolj osebni simboli, namenjeni preprečevanju ponarejanja ali spreminjanja, temveč so predstavljali znake v okviru določenega sistema pred vpeljavo pisave. Vsak znak ali simbol je verjetno označeval določeno vrsto blaga, ki se je prenašalo ali izmenjevalo. Kljub veliki raznolikosti geometrijskih motivov je njihova sestava sledila določenim konvencijam, kar nakazuje na standardizirano vizualno komunikacijo v skupnosti.

Storage jars of many shapes and sizes were in widespread use in the ancient world, transporting and storing agricultural products such as wine and oil, crucial to agriculture, economy, trade and subsistence. From the late 8th to the 2nd century BCE, the oval storage jars typical of Judah were often stamped or otherwise marked: in the late 8th and early 7th century BCE with lmlk stamp impressions, later in the 7th century with concentric circle incisions or rosette stamp impressions, in the 6th century, after the fall of Jerusalem, with lion stamp impressions, and in the Persian, Ptolemaic and Seleucid periods (late 6th-late 2nd centuries BCE) with yhwd stamp impressions. At the same time, several ad hoc systems of stamp impressions appeared: \"private\" stamp impressions were used on the eve of Sennacherib's campaign, mw ṣ h stamp impressions after the destruction of Jerusalem, and yršlm impressions after the establishment of the Hasmonean state. While administrative systems that stamped storage jars are known elsewhere in the ancient Near East, the phenomenon in Judah is unparalleled in its scale, variety and continuity, spanning a period of some 600 years without interruption. This is the first attempt to consider the phenomenon as a whole and to develop a unified theory that would explain the function of these stamp impressions and shed new light on the history of Judah during six centuries of subjugation to the empires that ruled the region-as a vassal kingdom in the age of the Assyrian, Egyptian, and Babylonian empires and as a province under successive Babylonian, Persian, Ptolemaic, and Seleucid rule.

In this article, I examine the use of patronyms in Hebrew personal names on Iron Age II epigraphic artefacts from Israel and Judah: stamp seals — a public form of name representation — and inscriptions. The study reveals a significant difference between Israel and Judah regarding the presence of a patronym: 91% (136 out of 149) of the stamp seals from Judah include a patronym, while 10 out of 11 stamp seals from Israel do not. A smaller but significant difference was also found in inscriptions: 49% of names in Judah but only 28% in Israel include a patronym. In addition, the study shows that the extensive use of patronyms is characteristic of Judaean stamp seals throughout the period. This difference in the use of patronyms between Judah and Israel may be attributed to the different nature of the two polities.

After the EBA I period came to an end at Hacılar Büyük Höyük around 2800 BC, the EBA II period can be easily followed in the excavations carried out at Kuruçay and Bademağacı Höyük, and in the neighbouring regions to the south, west, north and east of the Burdur – Antalya Region. Architectural remains from this period at Hacılar Büyük Höyük were uncovered in Trenches AB and C. Although the structures were badly damaged due to their proximity to the surface, the pottery and other finds that were obtained provide very interesting insights. The pottery uncovered so far includes a very diverse repertoire of forms that can be divided into five ware groups. In the same period, numerous fired clay finds such as schematic figurines that are slightly different from each other, stamp seals, schematic figurine-seals, numerical tablets and labels have been uncovered. In addition to these, metal finds such as an iron dagger with a wooden handle and traces of cotton weaving on it, and a gold earplug provide valuable information and insights into the unique cultural, social and economic dimensions of the settlement. All these finds show that Hacılar Büyük Höyük was a dominant centre in the EBA II period, as it was during EBA I.

Stamps, pendants and related image bearing objects of the Near Eastern Neolithic are commonly treated as markers of property control and as precursors of writing. Through a basic stylistic analysis of image and shape relations, this study focuses on material from later 7th and the 6th millennium BC Northern Mesopotamian sites in an attempt to understand the symbolic role of stamps within the wider context of social practice. I suggest that the stamps and pendants may have been objects that elaborated on their user’s identity in various spheres of social membership. More significantly, these objects may have introduced a new discursive field through which personal iden- tities and community structures began to be redefined with reference to male sexuality. This interpretation is demonstrated by the dominance of phallic imagery within the stamp assemblages of the time period and the links built between these phallic images and the remaining stamp corpus which is composed of powerful imagery surviving from the earlier Neolithic of the region.

This paper analyses the nature of a large stamp seal with complex religious motifs, recently excavated at Tel ʿEn Gev, Israel. The find is compared with other seals unearthed from sites in surrounding regions. Although the form and material of the seal reflect a local style, the motif of a degenerated form of a stylised tree indicates divergence from the local fertility symbols of the Middle to Late Bronze Age. The appearance of a variety of horned quadrupeds and suckling animals, together with scorpions, suggests cultural influence from northern Syria. Since this seal was unearthed from an Iron IB stratum at a site on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, its iconography seems to reflect the changing religious atmosphere at the beginning of the Iron Age in the southern Levant.

It has been convenient for scholars categorizing Hellenistic Babylonian seal impressions found on clay tablets and on clay parchment-sealings to distinguish “private” seals, those owned and used by private individuals acting on their own behalf in personal matters, from “official” seals, those used by office bureaucrats and high-ranking officers of the state or temple in the execution of their respective institution’s affairs. It has been argued on the basis of the tablets’ written contents, with but a single exception that proves the rule, that the tablet seal impressions, known to the field since the mid-nineteenth century, are those of private individuals, specifically the local urban elite, pursuing their personal interests. With the later publication of the clay parchment-sealings, two new seal types were distinguished by their Greek inscriptions and iconography and labeled official: (1) the largely aniconic seals identifying one of several different local Seleucid tax offices; (2) the large oval or rectangular seals with well-modeled intaglios depicting heads/busts and anthropomorphic figures of Greek style all identifying the , the local royal records officer. In the first comprehensive study of the parchment-sealings, Rostovtzeff ( ), expanded the definition of Seleucid official seals to include other large non-epigraphic impressions also displaying portraiture and figures obviously similar to the epigraphic seals, as well as those displaying the Seleucid anchor, certain that these too were all seals of the . It is argued herein, in part on the basis of the appearance of two such large anepigraphic portrait seals on the edge of a previously unedited Seleucid cuneiform archival tablet, that such seals are not those of royal officers but rather those of preeminent members of urban elite families and their agents; it is also argued that the anchor seal impressions are those of the kings themselves.

The article presents the archaeological and experimental data on the Neolithic stamp- seals from phenomenological perspective. An alternative view to their production, consumption and symbolic values is proposed by employing concepts of affordances, constraints, icons, indexes and symbols. It is argued that the stamp-seal motifs probably conveyed specific information, while objects were included in various networks of meaning. Similar importance is given to the fact that the stamp seals probably evolved a secondary mode of use.

Two examples of stamp seals discovered in the 2003 and 2005 seasons, one depicting a leopard, the other, a bear (both unusual with respect to their uncommon amulet forms reminiscent of figurines, and their recurrence in wall reliefs) provide a key role in understanding the symbolism of Çatalhöyük, along with the complex relations between some distinctive animal groups and their ritual role in the settlement. They demonstrate that the depiction of animals seems not to be confined only to the walls at Catalhöyük, but also appear as sacred symbols of the community on seals. The stamp in the form of a bear is another unique form that is also echoed in the large wall reliefs uncovered by Mellaart, which compels us to change some preconceptions about the ritual role of these wall reliefs, which have been interpreted as mother goddess images.