Seals : : making and marking connections across the medieval world / / edited by Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak.

• Superior document: The medieval globe ; Volume 4
• TeilnehmendeR: Bedos-Rezak, Brigitte,
• Place / Publishing House: Leeds, [England] : : ARC Humanities Press,, 2018.; 2019
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: Medieval globe ; Volume 4.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (ix, 245 pages) :; illustrations.

By placing medieval sealing practices in a global and comparative perspective, the essays gathered in this volume challenge the traditional understanding of seals as tools of closure and validation in use since the dawn of civilization. Far from being a universal technique, sealing is revealed as a flexible idiom, selectively deployed to mediate entangled identities: the introduction of Buddhism in early medieval China; the Islamization of Sasanian and Byzantine cultures; the balancing of Christian orthodoxy against classical and Muslim science; the development of civic consciousness in Byzantium; the efforts of tradesmen to brand merchandise for export; and the advancement of diplomacy from northern Europe to Indonesia. This examination of documentary seals, archaeologically recovered seal dies, and commercial and conceptual seals from cultures across the medieval world shows how skillful manipulation of their iconography, inscriptions, technology, and metaphorical meanings disseminated information, negotiated influences, asserted hegemony, and forged connections.

Table of Contents

Cultural transactions : an introduction to medieval seals from a global perspective / Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak -- Seals as conceptual and ritual tools in Chinese Buddhism, ca. 600-1000 CE / Paul Copp -- Imprinting powers : the astrological seal and its doctrinal meanings in the Latin West / Nicolas Weill-Parot -- A medieval solution to an early modern problem? : the royal animal seals of Jambi / Annabel Teh Gallop -- Expressing new rule : seals from early Islamic Egypt and Syria, 600-800 CE / Petra M. Sijpesteijn -- The formation of urban identity on Byzantine seals / Claudia Sode -- The cloth seal : a mark of quality, identification or taxation? / John Cherry -- Archaeology and sigillography in Northern Europe / Michael Andersen -- Medieval treaties and the diplomatic aesthetic / Jessica Berenbeim.