To Have and to Hold: Hieroglyphic Seals as Personal Markers and Objects of Display

none1noSeals decorated with iconography or inscribed in the undeciphered Cretan Hieroglyphic script were used as personal instruments embedded in the administrative machine of the First Palaces. Often used to be stamped on clay nodules and crescent-shaped sealings to manage transactions, they were strikingly small objects made of soft and hard stones of fine, often very fine, manufacture. This contribution aims to relate shape with function, by reconstructing their development in relation to the message they conveyed and through the typologies of seals selected to carry it. We address questions such as: is there a correlation between the ways in which iconicity was expressed in seal shape and in carrying script signs? To what extent did this iconicity represent a manipulation of specific personal display? What perception did illiterate Cretans have of these objects? These questions address the issue of authority at large and the particular status projected by carrying these objects rather than their being functional tools, within a culture which, seemingly, did not perceive literacy as a potent marker of prestige, as other coeval cultures did.opensilvia ferrarasilvia ferrar