Recording seal matrices on the Portable Antiquities Scheme’s database (30 mins, 9th May 2013)

SLIDE 1 Today I’m going to talk about how seal matrices are best recorded to allow us to retrieve the data, manipulate it and use it in research, or just use it to enable us to understand new finds better.

SLIDE 2 In many ways the recording of seal matrices on the PAS database is just like recording any other object type. We have our basic principles, set out here, which link the recording and publication of archaeological objects to the recording and publication of any other sort of archaeological data.

Firstly we may never see the matrix again, so the record has got to be good enough to, in effect, replace the object. It’s a form of preservation by record, which will be familiar to all archaeologists here today.

Secondly, and linked to the first, we have to present the information in a way which will allow the reader to evaluate what we have written – to mentally re-identify the object. So we must try to separate the description from the interpretation, and even if it’s a very well-known object type we must give enough information to back up our arguments.

Thirdly, the records must be consistent, so that we can retrieve the dataset that we are interested in. We have to remember here that other researchers, particularly those from outside the Scheme, won’t automatically know our recording conventions. And some artefacts, like seal matrices, will always be interesting to non-archaeologists, say historians or place-name specialists, and we have to make our records accessible to them too.

OK so that’s the basic principles; to replace the object with a record, to back up our statements with evidence, and to be consistent in our recording practice.

SLIDE 3 For those of you who use the records but don’t add them to the database, I’d just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, that we recorded 322 medieval seal matrices last year, and although that can sound like a lot, it doesn’t represent many per week for most of our recorders. Only ten FLOs record more than one seal matrix a month, and so it can be quite hard to remember how you did the last one and the benefits of the research you might have undertaken at the time. So don’t be too intolerant of records which come from areas with few seals.

Secondly, the PAS database has to be flexible enough to cover all sorts of objects. Coins are the only objects to have their own recording form, and so everything else from flint hand-axes to iron swords to delicate gold jewellery

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has to be recorded on the same multi-purpose form. We can’t accommodate on this form everything that the seals specialist might like to be able to search on. So again, please be tolerant of our shortcomings and help us to improve where we can.

SLIDE 4 Now let’s look at the detail. Firstly, when you have to record one of these, what do you call your object?

SLIDE 5 The answer is that you call it a seal matrix. Sadly though there are several on the database which are down as seals – I am trying not to look hard at David Williams here – and this of course isn’t right. As you will all remember from the mda thesaurus,....

SLIDE 6 ....a seal is a guarantee of authenticity and a seal matrix is the object used to make impressions as seals.

SLIDE 7 Subliminal message about cloth seals, irrelevant to today

SLIDE 8 The only time you don’t call it a seal matrix is when it has another primary function, and the main medieval example is the signet ring. These should be recorded as FINGER RING with ‘signet’ in the classification field.

SLIDE 9 OK so we’ve got over the first hurdle and now onto how we fill in the description field. This is where we tend to turn to one of two sources – either the Finds Recording Guide or to comparable records already on the database. Both have their drawbacks.

SLIDE 10 The Finds Recording Guide was written in an attempt to improve the parlous state of our records in 2000. It reflects the situation then, not now, and because I had only six weeks to write it in, every section is extremely short.

SLIDE 11 Researching other records and using them as a template is an excellent idea; it improves consistency, although beware of making records consistently bad rather than consistently good. It’s also easiest to copy the most recent records, which means that recording practice can drift over the years; so you do need to think really hard about what you are using as an example, and don’t always use the same one.

SLIDE 12 So, back to the nitty gritty. These two fields, classification and sub-classification, are never used very consistently and as a result they aren’t easy to search on. You have to use complicated syntax in the simple search field; they aren’t available in the advanced search. Because of this, it isn’t obvious to the recorder that they are useful and they aren’t often used. They certainly

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aren’t used consistently, and there isn’t any guidance at present on how to use them, so for now I will ignore them.

One of the possibilities for the future recording of seal matrices is that we might ask FLOs to fill them in with categories such as heraldic, personal, anonymous, official and so on, but we would need to be confident that this would actually be done, otherwise there wouldn’t be a lot of point because no researcher could rely on the field being filled in.

SLIDE 13 Moving on then to the description field, this is by far the most important field for data entry and searching, and should repeat the information in many of the other fields.

The important thing here is to be clear and to add all the relevant information.

SLIDE 14 Some time ago I produced a colour-coded handout to be used in training FLOs which gave all the different aspects that could be recorded for any individual object. It’s also on your handout. This can be followed pretty easily for a seal matrix to give the following made-up description.

SLIDE 15 You won’t be able to read this in the time it’s up, not that is if you are going to continue listening to me, and neither is it very interesting. The point I want to make is that, at this stage, recording a seal matrix is no different to recording any other object. The difference comes in looking at the specific features of a matrix; the central motif and the inscription, and I’ll come on to these in a little while.

I just want to say one last thing in terms of general recording and that is to beware of jargon or shorthand. SLIDE 16 Don’t, for example, describe a seal matrix as of pedestal or chess-piece type and think that you have done enough. I would be looking at the Suffolk team here but there aren’t any of them here today, so I will simply say beware of copying this. There is a variety of shapes within the conical form, as you can see from this slide, and they need to be carefully described. Some are hexagonally facetted, some are circular in cross-section, and so on.

SLIDE 17 On conical seal matrices, look out for marks on the reverse which might help in orientating the seal. Although these appear on several matrices, I could only find photographs of two, so we obviously need to make more of an attempt to get these into the photo.

For flat seals, note what’s on the reverse; any raised rib, any lug which might be pierced or not, any decoration. Do have a look at how the decoration on the reverse might have been produced – perhaps cast in relief or engraved.

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SLIDE 18 The main shapes for flat seals are circular and pointed-oval (do not use vesica – and don’t use vessica, I’ll have to clean up 148 records with vessica, Jessica) but there are also shield-shaped matrices and also a few lozengiform ones. Don’t forget to describe the shape of the shield. Now, moving on to recording the engraved face of the seal matrix.

Recording the engraved faceImpressionsBoth the central motif and the inscription can be very well recorded by taking an impression of the seal matrix and this should be done in all cases except when you are nervous of damaging the matrix. Impressions can be done using a variety of materials as you can see from this slide SLIDE 19. All methods have their drawbacks but none is as bad as not taking an impression, and in fact you should take several SLIDE 20. They will vary in quality so of course you need to think hard about who should get the best and who the worst one.

I have given you a handout about the use and storage of Dass, which is the cheapest and to my mind the easiest material, so I won’t say anything in detail about it here except SLIDE 21 to say that if you let it dry out to the extent that it cracks, you will not get the fine resolution on your impression that Dass can offer. If your impression looks like this, you should add some water to your Dass, mix it in as best you can, and leave it for a couple of days to rehydrate, before having another go.

Of course the best impression should be the one chosen for photography; I’ll go on to photography towards the end.

Central motifLet’s start off with how to record the central motif. These usually fall into one of several stock types, but as Elizabeth New points out in her excellent book that’s on the handout, you must describe what you can see and not what you think is being depicted.

So it’s not enough to just put down something like Agnus Dei or pelican in her piety. You have to describe it too, partly to convince the reader it’s what you think it is, so to allow them to mentally re-identify it; and partly to record the variety that there may be within the conventional motif.

SLIDE 22 Look at the variety we have of Agnus Dei motifs. Facing different ways, legs variously bent, flags treated differently, some crossing into the inscription, some not. So do use shorthand words for particular motifs – they are useful for searching – but also please describe the motif fully.

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SLIDE 23 It can be very difficult though to know what key words to use for the central motifs. These really very similar motifs have attracted a variety of different words, and at present there’s no easy way of rectifying this without a good deal of research, either using the PAS dataset or perhaps the Seals in Medieval Wales dataset which has already been sorted into types. In the meantime, there’s a lot on the detail of describing central motifs in Elizabeth New’s book, in an appendix.

InscriptionsSLIDE 24 The inscription is obviously one of the most important aspects of a seal matrix and therefore it’s worth spending time getting it right. In some cases, particularly with a lead matrix, dirt can make it easier to read the actual matrix than an impression and where you suspect that this may be the case, make sure that you take your photo before any attempt to clean or take the impression.

SLIDE 25 You also have to remember to say whether you are describing the matrix itself, or the impression. Is this border, for example, a groove or a ridge?

BordersSLIDE 26 While we are thinking about borders, don’t forget to record their presence or absence as this is thought to indicate a particularly early date, perhaps 12th century. A lack of borders, as on these two, appears to be found more often on circular matrices, although it is difficult to search for on the database and I haven’t found many.

Incidentally, here is a dotted or beaded border which tends to be found on copper-alloy rather than lead matrices.

Initial mark(same slide) Next, don’t forget to record the initial mark. This is normally a cross, but is quite often a six-pointed star; here you can see quite a variety, as on Tom Redmayne’s record here the mark appears to have been scratched rather than engraved. And be careful to put all the abbreviation marks and word separators – things like colons, apostrophes, stops – in their right places.

LetteringI’m not really qualified to judge the difference between Lombardic and Roman lettering. SLIDE 27 There are a few photos in Elizabeth New’s book, but there’s no really useful guide. I often suspect that most medieval seal-engravers weren’t too bothered either.

The main thing to do is to describe the inscription well, just in case someone feels up to taking forward the work begun in 1928 by Kingsford. SLIDE 28

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So help the reader by mentioning ligated letters SLIDE 29 – here are some of these – and reversed letters, anything that seems relevant.

SLIDE 30 Lettering becomes very different towards the end of our period with the advent of the black-letter style, and here are some examples from the PAS database.

Understanding your matrixNow you have read your seal matrix, or at least made a stab at it, how to interpret what you have or to improve your reading? There are several really good resources out there to help you.

SLIDE 31 Firstly, if you can see an S at the beginning of the inscription, it will probably include a name. This is the most useful thing that I’ve found for reading first names when you only have a few letters. You can of course hit control F, type in the letters that you can see, and look at what it suggests. The url is on your handout.

SLIDE 32 After the first name there will probably be a byname. This is most often a than a family relationship – we have a lot of sons but also some daughters, some wives, and a single sister – but we also have place-names, occupations and pure nicknames.

SLIDE 33 You can try Reaney and Wilson to identify surnames, and for a place-name you can use one of the place-name dictionaries around.

SLIDE 34 Secondly for anonymous seal matrices, the list in the back of Harvey and McGuinness is incredibly useful.

Inscription fieldSLIDE 35 Once you have read your matrix, it’s best to record it in this format; a reading with a translation in brackets. Don’t use inverted commas, as these can be confused with apostrophes used as abbreviation marks.

SLIDE 36 Then you absolutely MUST copy the inscription into the inscription field, as this is essential for doing any form of research on the matrices. At present only about half of the seal matrix records have the inscription filled in, and although some of these will be blank or illegible, most of them will be due to careless recording.

Using spaces between words is a knotty problem. Elizabeth New’s guide to describing seals recommends that you don’t leave spaces between the words, unless there are clearly gaps left on the matrix. However, it does make the reasoning behind the reading of an inscription much easier to follow for the reader.

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Ideally, I suppose, we would use spaces in the description field and not in the inscription field, which is the place for really precise recording; but as we all tend to cut-and-paste from the description to the inscription field, this may be a counsel of perfection. I think that I’d rather keep using the spaces for ease of understanding, and note in the description field if spaces really exist on the matrix itself.

Unfinished seal matricesI’d like to say a little here about unfinished matrices and blanks. These are very useful evidence for how matrices were commissioned, manufactured and sold, and so we need to be particularly careful in our recording of these. SLIDE 37 We have 40 medieval seal matrix records that use the word ‘unfinished’, and 53 that use the word ‘blank’, and I hope that includes most of them. Here are some complete blanks, seemingly as they came out of the mould.

SLIDE 38 And here is the remarkable copper-alloy mould found a couple of years ago, with an example of a mis-cast and unfinished matrix – both fantastic evidence for metal casting.

SLIDE 39 What’s interesting is that the manufacture of some matrices clearly began with the inscription, and others clearly began with the central motif. Here are some with the central motif engraved first.

SLIDE 40 Here are some others with the inscription begun but not the central motif. These are a bit counter-intuitive, as you would expect that the central motif would be more standard and mass-produced, but that the inscriptions would be more individual and so made at the end of the process when the central motif had already been chosen.

SLIDE 41 Related to these are cut matrices, presumably cut to cancel them and prevent them being used by others, perhaps fraudulently.

So we have unfinished seal matrices at the beginning of their lives, and deliberately destroyed seal matrices at the end of their lives. Neither of these would have been used on a document, so PAS records are the only clue to their existence.

Now lastly on to images.

PhotographySLIDE 42 Firstly, watch the lighting; if the photo doesn’t show the matrix or the impression it at its best, move the lights and take another one. SLIDE 43 You will often need to light the matrix and the impression differently. Here are some examples of good and bad practice.

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Fimo can be too shiny to photograph easily, as here, and Dass can be too white. If you are finding the Dass too white, you can use powdered graphite to darken it. You get this from a locksmith’s, and you put a bit on your thumb and rub it across from one side to the other to highlight the relief. Be warned, though; you can always put more graphite on but in my experience you can never get it off again.

SLIDE 44 (repeat of bullet points) Make sure that the projection is correct, you should have had a handout about that a long time ago; and make sure that the images are the same size. This kind of thing happens every now and then, when somebody moves the camera to get a different view into focus. The trouble is that we don’t know which image the scale refers to. And I’d like to apologise to the person who created this image as it is now over 5 years old and I know they do perfect and beautiful pictures now.

Can anyone tell me what else is wrong with this image? Not David or Frank. (The projection).

SLIDE 45 We always ask that all the views should be put on one image. Frank also always includes an image that he’s flipped horizontally, to give a mirror image, which can help in reading the seal. This is useful, but beware giving this as the only image of the matrix, because this will suggest that the engraver carved the letters all the wrong way round.

SLIDE 46 I was going to end with some tips on how to search just in case there were any non-PAS people here. But I don’t think you need this, so I’ll just leave you with this lovely object

SLIDE 47 A woman’s seal, nicely photographed, and apparently cut and folded to cancel. The finder unfolded it. This embodies a lot of the loveliness of the Scheme’s seal matrix records.

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