Cylinder seal
Topic: Bronze Age Civilisations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, China · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 1 "Writing and City Life"
Meaning
A cylinder seal was a small stone cylinder, carved on its outer surface and pierced down the middle. It was rolled over wet clay to leave one continuous picture. It could show the owner's name, his god and his office. Seals were used to close the knots of packages and the mouths of jars, and to prove a clay letter was genuine. NCERT calls the seal an urban artefact: it marked a person's role in city public life.
Example
In Mesopotamian cities such as Uruk and Ur, from c. 3000 BCE, merchants and officials rolled their cylinder seals on clay to mark goods and sign letters.
Don't confuse with
- Stamp seal: the type used in early India, including the Harappan cities. It was pressed down once rather than rolled.