Stamp seal

The dies were used to impress their picture or inscription into soft, prepared clay and sometimes in sealing wax.

The oldest stamp seals were button-shaped objects with primitive ornamental forms chiseled onto them.

[3] Romans introduced their signaculum around the first century BC;[3] Byzantine maintained the tradition in their commercial stamps.

[4] In antiquity the stamp seals were common, largely because they served to authenticate legal documents, such as tax receipts, contracts, wills and decrees.

The Indus stamp-seals probably had a different function from the stamp seals of the Minoan civilization, as they typically have script characters, with still undeciphered associations.