Why are Aegean seals important for us?
Hey, Genius, how are you? I have been thinking of the last lessons and I have one more question....
Yes Fritz...
Ok, these small artifacts are interesting but are they really that important to justify so intensive documentation and whole courses devoted on them? How much information about past societies can we really draw from them? I mean.... they are really small, not that impressive....
Well Fritz, think about this. Today we know more than 10.000 of these artifacts, most of which are well preserved and bear images on their seal faces. These representations are actually, if you think about it, excerpts from the life and cognition of societies long lost. There are, of course, images on other types of artifacts, like wall-paintings and relief vases, but those on seals are high in numbers and better preserved. Seals constitute, therefore, the richerst available source of the images Aegean people saw around them in their everyday life but also those of their customs, rituals and even those existing in their cognition!
Ah....
We learn, for example, that these people performed athletic feats, such as bull leaping and running, that they owned large mastiffs (!) and that they were involved in combats. We even get glimses of their religious rituals and metaphysical beliefs! Look at me, for example, I am an hybrid creature that only existed in Minoan and Mycenaean cognition. You would not have been aware of my existence if you did not have images of me!
Ok, I understand, this is really cool. I now also remember the images on the seals recovered some years ago in the Griffin Warrior Tomb! Look at these warriors specifically, unbelievable!
Exactly! And this tomb also shows you how these artifacts provide valuable information about the social organisation of these societies. This warrior was burried with, among others, more than 50 seals cut in precious materials. These suggest to you that the warrior was collecting high value prestige objects. He must have been a person of extraordinary prestige and power! Not all individuals from this society would have possessed such artifacts!
Yes, interesting... yes....
© Maria Anastasiadou, Nikos Podias, Creator: Nikos Podias
Plus, think about this: We have so many of these objects in variable materials, sizes and qualities of execution. When we know their dating and where they were found, we can try to localise their production areas. We can then, in a second step, try to see whether and how far away products of a workshop might have travelled. This way we can try to reconstruct movements of people and goods in space and, even, address the issue of the cultural and political organisation of these societies.
Aha, clear....
Ok...?
Yes... Say for example, you are Austrian... And in your country you have these chocotates, you call them Mozartkugel. If you fly from your country to me in Greece and you bring them as a present, their presence in my house would be a clear indication that either somebody from Austria was in my country and brought them along or, that somebody from my country travelled to Austria and brought back these chocolates.
And also, do not forget, I told you before that seals constitute one of the main sources of information regarding administration in Aegean societies. Look at this object for example, it is an impressed nodule with impressions of ten different seals. It was sealing what appears to have been a rolled/folded document tied with the string (the document has perished but here you see a modern impression in plasticine of its imprint on the base of the nodule). So, here we have the information that, possibly, ten different parties were partaking in an agreement, perharps a contract of some kind!
Aha, very interesting... And who were these people?
Well, great question but, sorry, we do not know. There are no names inscribed on these seals, so many things remain a huge enigma for us...
Ok... Too bad...
Well, yes, but we cannot know everything! Ok, I am leaving you now, see you in the next lesson, there we will see how we document these objects.
Fine, looking forward to it!