AIA Lecture: Hellenistic Sealings from Ptolemaic Edfu (Egypt)

The collections of the Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam, and the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, each own half of originally about 800 clay seal impressions said to be found ca. 1905 near the Horus Temple at Edfu, Upper Egypt. Among them are some of the most important Ptolemaic non-numismatic royal portraits, apart from the Nea Paphos hoard; in addition, themes from Egyptian and Greek myth and religion appear in interesting imagery; other depictions include animals, plants and objects. This talk will give a brief overview of the ongoing research, as well as international efforts to digitize Hellenistic sealings for an open-access overarching platform to make these seemingly dull and grey artefacts accessible to the specialists as well as the interested general public.

This event, organized by the Archaeological Institute of America – Tampa Bay Society, is open to the public and is free for members of the AIA.

Image: Clay seal impression with the portrait of the Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra I in the guise of Isis-Demeter (Edfu, Egypt, ca. ca. 180-177 BCE; APM inv. no. 8177-017). [Photograph: Stephan van der Linden; courtesy of the Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam.]