Analysis of a Seal - page 1
Keywords: Judahite artistic conventions, Egyptian and Babylonian, artistic composition
By ju on 18/02/2007
Level: Bachelor Honours Degree (BA, BEng, BSc etc)
Page Number: 1 of 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
BIB119 The Biblical World
Exercise 1
Analysis of a seal ‘B’
This paper will collect data from known authorities on Judahite artistic conventions compared to those of Egypt and Babylonia. Futhermore, it will attempt to analyse and describe the elements in the composition that are present and the use of any artistic conventions in positioning the elements in the overall composition, using conventions typical in Egyptian and Babylonian composition. In addition, the possible symbolic meanings of individual elements, including whether they are likely to be of foreign or local origin and the likely symbolic import of the overall design will also be analysed taking into account, what kind of person would have opted for this design and why.
It has been stated that ‘The art of ancient Judah is not well known since little of it has survived … some [seals] have been recovered through authorized controlled excavations while others have made their way to antiques markets as a result of illegal digging… professionals do not have the benefit of knowing the provenance or original context of the seal making their dating and local or foreign origin difficult to assess and identifying fakes is difficult’ (1)
It is clear from the above statement that professionals do not know the provenance or original context of any seals whether it be foreign or local, fake or genuine. It is for this reason that at this stage, only a guess can be made on the origin of seal ‘B’ on the basis of other known researchers comments in the field. The origin of the elements within the seal, will be examined later.
To begin at guessing the seals origins, it is necessary to analyse the inscription given on the seal and identify the language, whether it be local or foreign, as this will give a hint as to the possible origins of seal ‘B’ Broadly speaking, a language will have strong linguistic links with one country, empire or continent and by establishing this first, it is possible to develop ideas about the overall composition because it places the seal in its cultural context. When the individual symbols or letters that form an inscription are compared with other modern and ancient texts, it appears that the seal creator employs pre-exilic Hebrew letters, also known as ancient Hebrew. It is evident for example, that the inscription does not use cuneiform, a Babylonian script, as this type of lettering or
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