LEAD SEALS FROM EXCAVATIONS AND OF KNOWN ORIGIN IN GREECE

This study examines nine Byzantine lead seals in the Ödemiş Archeology Museum, dated to 8 th-11 th centuries AD, which belong to central authorities in charge of military and financial affairs. Research on three of the seals have been recently published in an article about sicillographic materials in the Ödemiş collection. This article comprises of different suggestions and editing of the reading of the seals examined in the abovementioned article as well as analysis on the content of the six other unpublished seals in the Ödemiş collection.

Lead Seals in Byzantine Thrace (6th-12th c.). Proceedings of the International Conference "Sigillography meets Historical Geography”, 2023

This volume was published in the framework of the research project: “Lead Seals in Byzantine Thrace (LSByT): Re-examination of data, mapping the distribution of findings and tracing the communication networks (6th-12th c.)” funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) for three and a half years. The host institution of the project was the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the collaborating institutions were the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Konstantin Preslavsky University of Shumen (Bulgaria). The project focuses on Byzantine lead seals, or molybdoboulla, a primary source of Byzantine history, which enrich our knowledge of Byzantine administration and social structures, as well as the prosopography and historical geography of the empire. Although seals can be used to trace communication networks and the circulation of written information in the medieval period, until now this aspect of the material has not been systematically studied. The project examines 2.909 Byzantine lead seals found in Bulgarian and Romanian areas that correspond mainly to the Early Byzantine Thracian provinces of Rhodope, Thrace, Haemimontus, Moesia Secunda and Scythia Minor and the Middle Byzantine themata of Thrace, Macedonia and Paradounavon. The first part of the book contains the papers presented at the International Conference: “Lead Seals in Byzantine Thrace. Sigillography meets Historical Geography” co-organised with the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna on 19 April 2023. The second part includes some of the results of the LSByT research programme: firstly, certain highlights of the systematic revision of the sigillary material from the 6th to the 12th century as regards its dating and reading and secondly, a set of thematic maps, which depict the geographical distribution of lead seals in Byzantine Thrace, accompanied by the corresponding tables of seal data. The main results of the research project are also disseminated in the website http://www.lsbyt.web.auth.gr/.

Byzantina Symmeikta 33, 2023

This study focuses on the publication of - and commentary on - three Byzantine lead seals that are part of a larger registered private collection. The first two are remarkable because of their owners' names, rarely attested in Late Antiquity and the Middle Byzantine period: Βιάτωρ / Viator (droungarios, date: ca. 650-700) and Genethlios (stratelates, date: ca. 750-825). The third, which belonged to a certain Ioannes, taboullarios (date: ca. 650-725), demonstrates a mixture of Greek and Latin symbols in a Greek inscription and, perhaps, is among the latest of this kind.

2021

This paper presents three formerly unpublished Byzantine lead seals and an amulet that were examined in the archaeological museum of Izmir (nos. 1, 3 and figs. 5a–b) and Akhisar (no. 2) in western Turkey. They date from the 7th to the 13th century AD. The seal of a Manuel apo hypaton (no. 1) reveals the relations between the court of Constantinople and the city of Smyrna in the 7th century AD. Another one of Ioannes hypatos spatharios (no. 2) comes from Akhisar (8th century AD). No. 3 is dated to the 11th and 12th centuries AD. A lead amulet at the appendix part (figs. 5a–b), which perhaps originates from the Early Byzantine period, bears the name of Sabaṓth.

Hungarian Archaeology, 2019

In Hungary, lead cloth seals have gained increasing recognition by those in the profession as well as the interested public outside of it. These small metal objects were the trademarks indicating the origin and brand of textile products in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, which ensured buyers that they were purchasing high-quality goods produced where the mark indicated. Behind the spectacular emergence of the importance of these finds is that before the appearance and general spread of metal detectors, there were only a few dozen of these seals known from the Carpathian Basin. Even these were often in private ownership and the scholarly literature hardly talked about them. This situation changed radically starting in the 1990s, when the number of finds increased by leaps and bounds, as well as in 2011 when the attention of the colleagues was drawn to these finds due to the excavations at Papa. Since then, Hungarian research into lead seals has been trying to catch up to the...

Gephyra, 2023

The collection of lead seals of the Pera Museum consists of 17 unpublished pieces, which are dated from the second half of the 7th century to the 13th century. Ten of the seventeen Byzantine lead seals of the Pera Museum collection mention the dignities and the offices of their owners. These offices range from the lower rank of a simple notary (no. 5) up to the highest office of the emperor himself (no. 9). There is only one seal related to the ecclesiastical administration, issued by a bishop (no. 2). Noteworthy are the seals of Georgios (no. 6), who has the uniquely attested office of an imperial apothekarios, as well as the 11th-century seal of Pharasmanes Apokapes, member of a notable Byzantine family of Armenian origin, by whom no other seals have been published so far. Another group of seals consists of the specimens (nos. 11-14 and possibly also no. 17) where only the name or the surname of their owner is mentioned. All these pieces are dated to the period between the second half of the 11th century and the 13th century. In the collection, there are two more iconographic seals (nos. 15-16) depicting on both sides holy figures without any inscription that mentions their owner, and finally, an unidentified seal (no. 17) (dated to the end of the 11th century).

OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, 2019

Kandilkırı, one of the two prehistoric settlements of the ancient city of Laodikeia on the Lykos River (Laodicea ad Lycum), was settled during the Early Bronze Age (EBA) 2 and 3 periods. The present study attempts to provide an overall assessment of questions pertaining to seals and sealing practices in south-western Anatolia, raised due to the discovery of a lead stamp seal at Kandilkırı. In EBA 2, metal seals appeared alongside the pre-existing clay ones, and by the end of the EBA 3, negatives of metal seals seem to have been added to the ‘trinket mould’ repertoire of artisans, who mainly cast lead and were active along the trade routes. The custom of seal usage in the Near East seems to have been partially adopted in south-west Anatolia in the EBA, then passed to mainland Greece from this region. It is proposed that the south-western corner of Anatolia might have played a more active role in the transport of Near Eastern ideas as a result of its closer proximity to the Mediterranean coast, and that at least a part of this connection might have been established via sea routes.

Οι οδηγίες προς τους συγγραφείς για τη συστηματοποίηση της μορφής των άρθρων που υποβάλλουν στο περιοδικό βρίσκονται στην ιστοσελίδα: www.kbe.auth.gr Formatting guidelines for contributors to the journal can be found at: www.kbe.auth.gr

Art-Sanat, 2023

The subject of this article is a Byzantine lead seal found during the excavations of the Inner Castle Baptistery of Paphlagonian Hadrianopolis in 2022. The lead seal found during the archaeological excavations in the baptistery is understood to belong to the 11th century AD thanks to the coins found in the same layer with the seal. The dotted borders on the obverse and reverse are carved very close to each other, and the borders became straight lines in some places. On the obverse of the seal, Archangel Michael is depicted within a dotted border, wearing an outfit decorated with precious stones, with diademed curly hair, holding a scepter in his right hand and a globus in his left hand. The reverse reads an address in four lines within a dotted border, the first line beginning with a cross. These kinds of seals are categorized by sigillographers as private seals used for personal business since they do not bear the owner's title or position on the reverse, except for his name. An evaluation of the Byzantine lead seal together with the coins found in the same context revealed that it has a significant place in terms of indicating that Hadrianopolis continued to be inhabited until the 11th-12th century AD, albeit on a small scale, which was previously considered to have been abandoned due to the interruption of data from archaeological excavations starting from the middle of the 7th century AD. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Makalenin konusunu, Paphlagonia Hadrianopolis’i 2022 yılı İç Kale Vaftizhanesi kazılarında bulunan bir Bizans kurşun mührü oluşturmaktadır. Vaftizhanedeki arkeolojik kazı çalışmalarında bulunan kurşun mührün hem ön ve arka yüzünde yer alan noktalı bordürlerin birbirine oldukça yakın işlenmesinden dolayı bazı yerlerde bordürlerin düz çizgi hâline gelmiş olması hem de mühürle aynı tabakada ele geçen sikkeler sayesinde MS 11. yüzyıla ait olduğu anlaşılmaktadır. Mührün ön yüzünde noktalı bordür içerisinde Baş melek Mikail’in kıymetli taşlardan süslü kıyafetiyle diademli kıvırcık saçlı, sağ elinde asa ve sol elinde globus tutan tasviri bulunmaktadır. Mührün arka yüzünde ise, noktalı bordür içerisinde dört satır hâlinde ilk satırının haçla başladığı bir hitap yazısı yer almaktadır. Bu mühürler, arka yüzünde sahibinin adı dışında unvan ve görevlerinin yazılı olmamasından dolayı sigilografi çalışanları tarafından şahsi işler için kullanılan özel mühürler olarak sınıflandırılmaktadır. Çalışmanın konusunu oluşturan Bizans kurşun mührü aynı kontekste ele geçen sikkelerle birlikte değerlendirildiğinde, arkeolojik kazılardan elde edilen verilerin MS 7. yüzyılın ortalarından itibaren bir kesintiye uğramasından dolayı terk edildiği düşünülen Hadrianopolis’te küçük de olsa MS 11.-12. yüzyıla kadar yerleşimin devam ettiğine işaret etmesi açısından da oldukça önemli bir yere sahiptir.