The stamp seal is a carved object, usually stone, first made in the 4th millennium BC, and probably earlier. They were used to impress their picture or inscription into soft, prepared clay.
Seal devices have seldom survived through time; it is usually only their impressions. A major exception are the cylinder seals made of stone, of which examples of their ancient impressions have survived as well, the majority being of clay tablets sealed as an authentication.
The Halaf culture saw the earliest known appearance of stamp seals in the Near East.
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