Ameri Marta, Costello Sarah K., Jamison Gregg, Scott Sarah J. (eds.) Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World: Case Studies from the Near East, Egypt, the Aegean, and South Asia

Cambridge University Press, 2018. — 494 p. — ISBN-10 110719458X; ISBN-13 978-1107194588.Studies of seals and sealing practices have traditionally investigated aspects of social, political, economic, and ideological systems in ancient societies throughout the Old World. Previously, scholarship has focused on description and documentation, chronology and dynastic histories, administrative function, iconography, and style. More recent studies have emphasized context, production and use, and increasingly, identity, gender, and the social lives of seals, their users, and the artisans who produced them. Using several methodological and theoretical perspectives, this volume presents up-to-date research on seals that is comparative in scope and focus. The cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach advances our understanding of the significance of an important class of material culture of the ancient world. The volume will serve as an essential resource for scholars, students, and others interested in glyptic studies, seal production and use, and sealing practices in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Ancient South Asia and the Aegean during the 4th-2nd Millennia BCE.Marta Ameri is an Assistant Professor of Art History at Colby College, Maine where she teaches courses focusing on Ancient, Medieval, and Islamic Art; Sarah Kielt Costello, Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Houston, Clear Lake, is co-director of the Collections Analysis Collaborative (CAC), a research initiative with Rice University, Houston and Houston's Menil Collection, focused on the art of the ancient Mediterranean World; Gregg Jamison is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; Sarah Jarmer Scott received her Ph.D. in the History of Art from the University of Pennsylvania in 2005.