Ancient Near Eastern seals and sealing practices

Stamp seals first appeared in 'administrative' contexts in central and northern Mesopotamia in the seventh millennium and were used exclusively until the fifth millennium.

Cylinder seals appeared first around 3600 BC in southern Mesopotamia and south-western Iran (Middle Uruk Period).

They gradually replaced stamp seals, becoming the tool of a rising class of bureaucrats in the early stages of state formation.

In the first millennium, stamp seals made a strong comeback and eventually replaced cylinder seals entirely.

General bibliography: Manufacture and materials Prehistoric seals Sealing practice: Uruk seals Early Dynastic seals Iconography: Sealing practice: Akkadian Glyptic art: Sealing practice: Ur III Glyptic art: Sealing Ur III: Sealing documents: Isin-Larsa / Old Babylonian Old Assyrian Mitanni and Kassite Middle Assyrian Sealing practices: Kassite/Middle Babylonian

Clay bulla impressed with the seal of Barnamtarra, wife of Lugalanda , ensi (ruler) of Lagash. Early Dynastic III, c. 2400 BC. Found in Telloh (ancient Girsu )
Stamp seal and modern impression. Horned animal and bird, 6th–5th millennium B.C. Northern Syria or Southeastern Anatolia. Ubaid period . Metropolitan Museum of Art