Identity Writ Small: Seal Imagery in Seleucid Palestine
In the world and time of the classical East, multiple ethnoi lived tightly packed within the confined territory of the southern Levant. Tyrians, Judeans, Idumeans (among others) differentiated themselves by distinct languages, scripts, gods, calendars, and legal precepts. Yet all shared the fate of...
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| Contributors: | |
| Format: | Print Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2024
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| In: |
Images in transition
Year: 2024, Pages: 254-265 |
| Further subjects: | B
Persian Period
B Kedesh B Seal |
| Summary: | In the world and time of the classical East, multiple ethnoi lived tightly packed within the confined territory of the southern Levant. Tyrians, Judeans, Idumeans (among others) differentiated themselves by distinct languages, scripts, gods, calendars, and legal precepts. Yet all shared the fate of living under outside political dominion – the Achaemenid Persians, Ptolemies, and Seleucids – who introduced other alphabets, languages, ways of marking time, gods, rituals, and social ranks. People used visual means in part to cope with the cultural cacophony, especially objects that allowed the expression of personal and group identities. Chief among these were seal rings. Here we discuss the meanings conveyed by impressions from three rings, found among more than 2000 such impressions from a mid-second century BCE archive at Tel Kedesh, in northern Israel. Each conveys a different pictorial mode and channels a distinct cultural milieu. We argue that their differences may be read as a kind of call-and- response, revealing how people in this place and time chose to represent themselves individually and collectively. |
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| Physical Description: | 5 Illustrationen (schwarz-weiß) |
| ISBN: | 9042954418 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Images in transition
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