Near Eastern Old Syrian Popular Style Cylinder Seals Physical Characteristics

I have shared within previous posts, macro images that reveal the method and features of engraving. As well, have expressed the importance of breaking down internal toolmarks of the borehole as the most definitive piece of diagnostic evidence. For this blog entry the goals are to research so as to learn for my own education, share, and talk about with others the "physical characteristics of old Syrian popular style (OSPS)" cylinder seals. 

When I first became attracted to Near Eastern cylinder seals, it was the result of researching my Syrian ancestry. I have some experience with other types of antiques and the one thing I learned quickly was not to try and learn about every single medium within a group. It is best to choose a specific niche category within the group to begin with. So, from this point forward I am going to do the same with these Near Eastern cylinder seals and concentrate initially and specifically on a niche group known as the "Old Syrian Popular Style" cylinder seals. What better way to feel a sense of connectiveness to my ancient Syrian ancestry! 

Important areas to cover include the properties of material (mineral, stone or clay), dimensions and shape. 

This blog entry will cover the materials 

One of the main characteristics of the old Syrian popular style seals is that they are predominantly chlorite or talc (soapstone) and not more precious and harder materials such as hematite, which was the main mineral for the better-quality contemporary seals. Barbara Porter notes the stone type of all the Marcopoli seals which have since been shown to be chlorite were considered to be serpentine. It was peculiar that no seal within the Marcopoli collection was identified as chlorite even though it had become a popular material in the late third millennium as noted by Dominique Collon. So, the information presented follows her research of the British Museum collection. 

Chlorite, serpentine and talc/soapstone are of soft to medium harness and with varied colors like brown, black and green. The relative hardness on Mohs scale for these is approximately 2-3 for chlorite, 3-4 for serpentine, 2-3 for talc rock (soapstone), pure talc being 1 as compared to hematite at 5-6.5. The softness of the stone surely contributes to the very worn condition of so many of these seals. The characteristic wear patterns of the soft, chlorite seals are rounded edges and flattened, indistinct engravings. 

When steatite and chlorite are fired, either accidentally or deliberately, the hardness increases to approximately Mohs 6-7.

Interestingly this 2nd Millenium Old Style Popular Style seal is carved from faience, a rarely discussed or attributed Near Eastern Cylinder seal material with a correct specific gravity of 1.66.

The Diagnostic Properties of Faience vs Stone 

If this particular seal were instead carved from a natural stone common to the Old Syrian Popular Style (such as chlorite, steatite, or calcite), the specific gravity would be dramatically different:

For explicit discussions of Old Syrian Popular Style seals made of faience we need to look into broader Near Eastern glyptic surveys, and specialized archeological site reports.

1. Dominique Collon - First Impressions: Cylinder Seals in the Ancient Near East 

In her chapters tracking the Bronze Age Levant and Syria, she notes that while hard stones (like hematite) were reserved for elite, high-quality "Classic Syrian" seals, cheaper mass-produced seals—specifically those cut in the linear, deeply drilled "Popular Style" were heavily manufactured using soft materials like faience, glazed limestone, and soft steatite to meet the commercial demands of the general public. 

2. Beatrice Teissier - Ancient Near Eastern Cylinder Seals from the Marcopoli Collection

In Teissier's analytical publication of the collection, she includes a dedicated category for Middle-to-Late Bronze Age Syrian Popular Style seals. In her material descriptions for these specific geometric and simple animal-motif seals, multiple examples are explicitly cataloged as faience or "glazed composition," detailing how the original-colored glaze layer has completely eroded away over centuries of burial.

3. Excavation Reports from Alalakh (Tell Atchana) and Ugarit (Ras Shamra)

Sir Leonard Woolley's excavation reports for Alalkh: Woolley uncovered hundreds of local Syrian seals from Levels VII through IV (the exact 2nd-millennium timeframe). He specifically notes that the crude, linear style seals (which we now universally categorize under Porter's "Old Syrian Popular Style" umbrella) were overwhelmingly made of faience and soft synthetic pastes, rather than premium imported stones.

When reading older archaeological texts or specific collection indices, you may not always see the exact word "faience". Authors frequently substituted it with alternative terms such as, glazed composition - vitreous paste, sintered quartz, and frit, though technically frit is unglazed, it is often jumbled in older texts. 

Another material is baked and unbaked clay which had the advantage of being disposable and may have been the Syrian equivalent of Mesopotamian burgul seals, which were made of cheap materials as needed and then thrown away.