Agency Matters: Seal-Users in Pylian Administration

Abstract

This study aims to provide insights into the patterns discernible in the Pylian sealing practices with regard to the identity of the seal-owners involved. The focus is on reassessing the problem of the function of glyptic imagery and on testing the working hypothesis that differences in the subject matter of the seal devices used to produce the seal impressions may have reflected the hierarchical status of the Pylian seal-owners. On the basis of context, typology and iconography it is suggested that the heirloom signet rings impressed upon the direct object sealings and the combination nodules from the Archives Complex as well as upon a set of hanging nodules from the Northeastern Building designated offices within the Pylian administrative system. In the case of the open irregular string nodules from the Northeastern Building, the Wine Magazine and the Southwestern Building, it is argued that they mainly reflect a system of receipts. Last but not least, the example of a gold ring impression reproducing key palatial iconography is used to demonstrate that the seal devices should be interpreted as visual symbols that acquired their meaning through convention. One of the mechanisms through which the rings and the seals would have been differentiated and associated with individual offices or other institutions was possibly the way specific symbols were embedded within the composition of image.introduction: sealed documents as means for detecting agency in mycenaean administrationIn the Mycenaean polities of the Late Helladic III period ( Fig. 1) documents produced by impressing seals on lumps of clay have indicated standardized administrative acts such as the receipt of incoming goods in the palatial establishments, the securing of commodities and, possibly, the distribution of their contents. The premise underlying the perception of the Mycenaean sealed documents as an effective means of institutional control is that the seals impressed upon them had a representational value, and plausibly signified individuals or their offices as well as collective groups. The study of the clay seal impressions can, accordingly, give insights not only into the nature of the transactions of each polity with its periphery but also to OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 29(1) 57-88 2010 58 involved in the supervision of consignments to the palaces, which involved clay sealings and nodules as accounting and mnemonic devices.Nonetheless, the sealed documents recovered from the final destruction of the Ano Englianos palatial complex and from the early LM IIIA2 destruction deposit of the Knossian palace (object sealings, nodules, 2 noduli) imply the participation of a large number of persons in the sealing process (Fig. 2). If these clay documents are viewed as artefacts having semantic properties beyond the amuletic attributes of their seal devices, they can provide a new way to study agency. The morphology of the clay nodules, as well as the impressions of seals and/or gold signet rings that they bear, namely of objects with inherent social ...

The Tablet-Makers of Pylos: An Experimental Investigation Into the Production of Linear B Tablets

“…The inclusion of these straws/strings has been suggested to have a variety of purposes: giving the tablet greater stability (Godart 1988, 248–50; 1994; 30 Palaima 1988, 27; 2011, 105–6; 31 Del Freo 2019, 172–3); allowing the tablet to be lifted while still wet without distorting its shape or smudging the inscription (Palaima 1996b, 104–5; 2011, 105); preventing the loss of any pieces broken off in handling or transportation (Bennett 1996, 28–9; Palaima 1996a, 382 n. 10; J.-P. Olivier in Palaima 1996b, 105); or attaching sealings to tablets for authentication (E.L. Bennett in Palaima 1994, 334–5; Palaima 1996b; Flouda 2010, 65–6; Younger 2010, 334; Panagiotopoulos 2014, 190–1, 252–4). The last of these hypotheses is not, in my opinion, a plausible one: sealing as an authentication practice seems to have been required only at the administrative stage represented by the sealings – extremely short documents likely to have been written in multiple locations and sent to or from the palace along with the goods they registered – whereas the act of writing a palm-leaf or page-shaped tablet, whether this took place in or away from the palace (as discussed above), seems to have constituted all the authentication required.…”

“… 6 On Mycenaean sealing practices, see Younger 2010; Panagiotopoulos 2014; on Pylian sealings, see Flouda 2000; 2010; Shelmerdine 2012b. There are also small numbers of ‘noduli’ – small lumps of clay without strings which bear inscriptions and seal impressions – and inscribed but not sealed ‘nodules’.…”