Degree Date

2021

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology

Abstract

The Persepolis Fortification archive, a large archive of administrative tablets dating to the early years of Darius I (509-493 BCE), preserves impressions of over 4,000 distinct and legible seals. 174 of these approximately 4,000 seals carry both figural imagery and text in their designs. This dissertation presents the inscribed seals corpus from the Fortification archive for the first time, thus laying the groundwork for future studies on inscribed seals from Persepolis.

Inscribed seals offer myriad avenues of investigation. In the present study, we focus on three main features of inscribed seals: 1) the languages and formulae of the inscriptions; 2) the thematic types and compositional formulae of the figural imagery; 3) the methods of presenting the inscriptions and placing them in designs. Clear patterns emerge when we trace these features according to the language(s) of the seal inscriptions. Moreover, we discuss the ways in which the figural imagery of the inscribed seals varies from that of the overall glyptic corpus from the Fortification archive.

Owing to their archival context, the inscribed seals from the Fortification archive present a special opportunity to link some seals with the officials and/or offices who used them. By considering the inscribed seals in tandem with the documents to which they are applied, we illuminate some of the ways in which inscribed seals can be linked with their user(s). In doing so, we explore the socio-historical aspects of inscribed seals, noting particular glyptic patterns according to particular types of offices/administrators.

This study also highlights the ways in which other glyptic practices in the 1st millennium BCE may have influenced Persepolitan inscribed seals. Special attention is given to the Neo-Assyrian, Late Neo-Elamite, and Late Babylonian glyptic traditions. By examining these connections, we reveal also the distinctively Achaemenid features of inscribed seals from the Fortification archive.

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