Der gerechte König. Überlegungen zum Zusammenhang von Königspsalmen und JHWH-Königpsalmen (2020) (original) (raw)
J. Auenmüller - N. Moustakis (Hrsg.), Gesiegelt – Versiegelt – Entsiegelt. Studien zum Siegel(n) als Kulturtechnik von der Antike bis zum frühen Mittelalter. Kasion 7, 2022
The article examines the question of who could potentially have used the seals with ruler portraits that are preserved in the form of many impressions from Hellenistic archive complexes. It focuses on finds from the archives of Uruk/ Orchoi and Seleucia on the Tigris that show portraits of Seleucid kings. It turns out that these impressions are most likely from ‘official’ seals, i. e. those used by officeholders. For Ptolemaic Egypt, from where numerous seal impressions with portraits of the Ptolemaic kings are known, especially in the case of the Archive of Nea Paphos, the question of who used such seals can be answered less clearly than for the Seleucid Empire. The distinction between ‘official’ and ‘private’ seals has been much discussed, however, without consensus. Methodologically, the present paper uses the quantitative analysis which offers the possibility to identify characteristics that allow to classify other seals regarding their ‘official’ character. Seals that can be called ‘official’ with certainty, because they carry an inscription naming the officeholder who used them, and seals with e.g., the Seleucid anchor that are known from literary sources to have been used in official contexts, are considered as the material basis to ask the following research questions: Who sealed with the portrait of the king and did this take place in an ‘official’ or ‘private’ context?