Sealing
Unknown Artist
ca. 7th century CE
Medium
Un-baked clay
Dimensions
0.47 in. (1.19 cm)
Classification
Clay-Sealings
Culture & Period
Sasanian · Sasanian
Department
Ancient Near Eastern Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1936
Accession Number
36.30.231
Art Historical Context
This delicate *Sealing*, crafted from un-baked clay around the 7th century, offers a fascinating window into the bustling administrative world of the Sasan Empire—the last great Persian dynasty before the Islamic conquest. Measuring just 0.47 (1.19 cm), this tiny artifact from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Ancient Near Eastern collection was likely an impression made by pressing a seal into soft clay to secure documents, parcels, or storage jars. Such sealings were everyday tools of Sasanian bureaucracy, ensuring and preventing tampering in a vast empire stretching from Mesopotamia to India...