DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3720#0088
SEALS AND STAMPS.
equally inexplicable,—and many animals and productions of
Egypt are also unnoticed.
It is also curious to observe how near tbe Egyptians
approached, without actually arriving at, some later invention.
Thus though they stamped metal, and used carved seals and
cylinders of gold, or stone, for sealing the clay fixed to docu-
ments, as early as the fourth and twelfth dynasties, they never
relieved themselves from the inconvenience of weighing every
ring of gold or silver spent in purchases at the market, and
never hit on the expedient of coinage; and the numerous
sassa
(W. 49.)
impressions of the dies they employed for stamping leather and
other substances, never suggested the idea of moveable types.
Impressions of seals on clay, marked also by the fibres of
the cloth or of the papyrus they were attached to, and
equally inexplicable,—and many animals and productions of
Egypt are also unnoticed.
It is also curious to observe how near tbe Egyptians
approached, without actually arriving at, some later invention.
Thus though they stamped metal, and used carved seals and
cylinders of gold, or stone, for sealing the clay fixed to docu-
ments, as early as the fourth and twelfth dynasties, they never
relieved themselves from the inconvenience of weighing every
ring of gold or silver spent in purchases at the market, and
never hit on the expedient of coinage; and the numerous
sassa
(W. 49.)
impressions of the dies they employed for stamping leather and
other substances, never suggested the idea of moveable types.
Impressions of seals on clay, marked also by the fibres of
the cloth or of the papyrus they were attached to, and