The Iconography of Some Phoenician Seals and Seal Impressions

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY

THE ICONOGRAPHY OF SOME PHOENICIAN SEALS AND SEAL IMPRESSIONS W. Culican, University of Melbourne The purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, to publish a number of seals and seal impressions and secondly, to discuss the iconography of these and their relatives within the wider context of Phoenician glyptic art and religion. Many of the seals published here have details closely comparable to examples already known. Phoenician seals, mostly of green jasper and carnelian, but with occasional examples in chalcedony, and sharing many common techniques of gravure, are particularly well represented from the Phoenician colonies in the West Mediterranean. Most of the published examples come from Tharros in Sardinia1 but they are well known at Carthage,2 Utica 3 and from Spain, where Ibiza,4 Villaricos 5 and Gibraltm·l\ have provided examples. There is an early find of imprints of these seals from Selinunte in Sicily,' but otherwise they are rare in the Phoenician colonies of Sicily, Motya having provided a few examples,8 and none is recorded from Malta.

1. H. B. WaIters, Catal. Engraved Gems and Cameos etc. in the British !VIlIseum, 1926; many are included in A. Furtwangler, Die AI/tiken Gemm el/ , 1900 (afterwards "Furtwangler"). Many of the seals illustrated by Alberto della Marmora's So pra a/cllne al/tichita sW'de (Memorie della Reale Accad. di Scienze, Torino, 1854) were originally published by Canon B. Spano in various volumes of BIIII arch. sW'do; C. Mansell, Gaz. arch., 1877, pp. 74-76; 1878, pp. 35-40, 50-53 , discusses individual motifs from Tharros scarabs. 2. J. Vercoutter, Les objets egyptiens et egypti.l'al/ts du lIlobilier fUl/eraire carthagil/ois, Paris, 1945, where all previous literature is cited. 3. J . Moulard, "Fouilles Et Utique en 1925," Bull. arch., 1926, p. 225 if. 4. A. Vives E