Inscribed seals, used to validate documents or goods, were often worn on a string or chain. Some examples, whose inscriptions invoke God and no personal name, are believed to have doubled as talismans to provide protection to their bearers (although it has been argued that the religious formulas would have had no power until they were stamped and could be read forwards). Depending on the reading of this seal's inscription, it could fall into either category. One suggestion is that it is a common abbreviation of the phrase, "Rely on God;" another is that it reads, "Ali trusts in God", implying that the seal's owner was a man named 'Ali, or that he was Shi'i.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Inscribed Seal
Date:10th–11th century
Geography:Excavated in Iran, Nishapur
Medium:Jet; incised
Dimensions:H. 13/16 in. (2 cm) W. 7/16 in. (1.1 cm) D. 5/16 in. (0.8 cm)
Classification:Seals
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1939
Object Number:39.40.141
Jet Seal
The personal seal, which served in the Near East long before the advent of Islam as an individual official signature (as well as a very effective means of securing goods), was essential to the conducting of business affairs. According to tradition, the prophet Muhammad was told that his letters to foreign rulers would be taken seriously only if stamped with a personal seal. He thereupon ordered a seal made in the form of a ring.[1] Whether or not this story is true, the seal ring was certainly the most common way to carry a seal. Sometimes the inscription was cut into the metallic top of the ring, although it was probably more common for the inscription to be cut into a stone that was then set in the usual manner. Among the many stones employed as seals, carnelian was by far the most popular. We do not know whether this was, as Pliny (citing Zenothemis) affirmed,[2] because it did not pull away the wax upon which it was being impressed. Certainly carnelian has other qualities that recommend it for this use: availability, toughness, and resistance to abrasion. Seals were also commonly applied to clay and, after application of ink to the surface of the seal, to paper.
Early Islamic sealstones were made from many kinds of stones and came in many forms. This jet seal, pierced for suspension—perhaps around the wrist or neck—by a cord, bears no name but rather the common Islamic phrase: Tatuwa[kil] 'ala Allah ("Re[Iy] on God"), which was often inscribed on sealstones in this general period, in many cases shortened to the abbreviated ("Re[ly]"), typically in conjunction with the name of the owner of the seal.
[Jenkins and Keene 1983]
Footnotes:
1. Allan, James. "Khatam, Khatim." The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., vol. 4. Leiden, 1978.
2. Pliny. Natural History, vol. 10. Translated by D. E. Eichholz. Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1962, p. 235.
Inscription: In Arabic: Tatuwa[kil] 'ala Allah: (Re[ly] on God)
1936, excavated at Sabz Pushan in Nishapur, Iran by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's expedition; 1939, acquired by the Museum in the division of finds
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Islamic Jewelry in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 22–August 14, 1983, no. 3a.
Keene, Manuel. "The Lapidary Arts in Islam." Expedition (1981). no. 3a, p. 29, ill. (b/w).
Jenkins-Madina, Marilyn, and Manuel Keene. Islamic Jewelry in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1983. no. 3a, p. 19, ill. (b/w).
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