One of twenty-one seals c. 800

This is an undated stamp seal made by an anonymous artist. Seals like this one were produced in ancient Mesopotamia and the Levant, and would have been used to authenticate documents or mark property. The image on the seal – a winged lion – speaks to the function of art as a marker of status. The seal’s imagery draws upon a shared visual culture in which specific animals came to be associated with certain roles or qualities. Lions often represented power, strength, or royalty. The wings perhaps indicate that these qualities have a divine source. The script accompanying the image would likely have identified the seal’s owner, although the precise language and meaning are now lost to us. Historians piece together the social function of objects such as this by looking at archaeological records, ancient texts, and the broader history of Near Eastern visual culture. What we learn from this is that even small, functional objects can tell us a great deal about the social and institutional context of their time.