Ērān ud Anērān
Webfestschrift Marshak 2003
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Transoxiana

Sasanian clay sealings in the Metropolitan Museum and in a New York private collection: Physical characteristics

Prudence O. Harper*

Abstract

Since the publication in 1973 of the late Sasanian sealings excavated by the Metropolitan Museum in the 1930s at Qasr-i Abu Nasr in southern Iran, increasing numbers of Sasanian sealings have been excavated and published. In 1987 D. Huff gave a full description of the physical characteristics of the Takht-i Sulaeiman sealings providing parallels in some respects for the descriptions of the material found at Qasr-i Abu Nasr. This publication has been followed by a few others giving partial or full information on the characteristics of the sealings.

To honor Boris Marshak who has published and interpreted his discoveried at Piandjikent with exemplary precision and promptness a few additional comments about the sealings found at Qasr-i Abu Nasr are offered here. In addition the physical features of a group of sealings, each impressed with the seal of one of the four generals of the Sasanian empire (recently published by R. Gyselen), and other examples bearing the same seal impressions (now all in a private collection in New York) will be included.

An examination of these two groups of sealings and of a third group in the Pahlavi Archive of the University of California, Berkeley described by Guitty Azarpay provides new information about the objects sealed and variations in the sealing process itself.

* Curator Emeritus, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York


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Actualizado el 24/07/2004

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