In 1994, Ronald Wallenfels published Uruk : Hellenistic Seal Impressions in the Yale Babylonian Collection. AUWE 19.. It is a catalogue raisonée of seal impressions appearing on cuneiform tablets from Hellenistic Uruk, published in the volumes BIN 1, BIN 2, BRM 2, YOS 20. These texts are or will be available in the HBTIN corpus.
In the intervening years, Wallenfels has maintained a file of corrections, re-identifications, and updates to the inventory of impressions. These have been integrated here into the legacy text of AUWE 19, with no attempt made to distinguish the updates from the legacy text. Readers interested in the evolution of Wallenfels work should consult print versions of AUWE 19 along with Wallenfels' article: "Uruk: Hellenistic Seal Impressions: Additions and Corrections." Parthica 24 (2022): 41–64.
Major additions to the corpus of seal impressions presented
in AUWE 19 derive from:
Major additions to the published corpus of legal texts from
Hellenistic Uruk include:
Corò's volumes do not include individual images of the seal impressions. Wallenfels identified the seal impressions associated with each seal user on the basis of photographs Corò provided, combined with the onomastic information associated with each seal user. It is hope that in the future, images can be integrated into this resource.
NOTES TO READERS
STRUCTURE OF THE ENTRIES
NUMERATION
follows the print version of
AUWE 19, with the following modifications:
BULLETS:
identify the following categories of information:
► precedes the name of the seal owner or user
● precedes the date(s) of the texts on which the impression(s) appear
→ precedes notes about the impression
SEARCHING THE CORPUS
Bibliographic references in AUWE 19 2.0 refer to items included in the print volume. Full bibliographic information for items post-dating 1994 (or those introduced by "see now") appear in AUWE 19: Bibliography Updates.
SIGLA
The sigla used here follow standard conventions and abbreviations. A few comments to clarify practices of labeling and numeration may be useful:
CM 12 items are labeled as follows:ABOUT THE IMAGES
Wallenfels photographed the individual seals for the print version of AUWE 19
at twice lifesize, and drew the line-art at approximately
lifesize. Because of the dynamic nature of a web-page, the descriptive
text accompanying each entry should be consulted for the actual size
of each impression.
The line-art thumbnails to the right of catalogue entries containing multiple instances of a seal's use may be composite drawings.
Where the links lead:
Publication sigla are linked to the respective tablet's CDLI or Yale Babylonian Collection page, which contains the catalogue metadata for each tablet and where the reader may view a photographic image and/or line-art representations of the tablet inscription. Individual images of the seal impressions may be viewed by clicking on links to edge and placement numbers (e.g., TE3), or to the number assigned to an impression on a specific bulla (e.g., CBCY 5 13-4).
AUWE 20: forthcoming
Plans to integrate information from AUWE 20 are in the works.
Preparation of AUWE 19 2.0 began in 2022-2023. Laurie E. Pearce, Ronald Wallenfels were assisted by undergraduate students participating in the UC Berkeley Undergraduate Research Assistant Program.
Content last modified: 21 Jul 2023