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EstQuodFulmineIungo

Civis Illustris

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BTW, Hawkwood question is really interesting. I didn't have the same doubt, until he pointed out that strange thing and now I wonder too at what that might be.
I think that the answer is related to archaeometallurgy, rather than to the symbol itself.
 
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Michael Zwingli

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris
EstQuodFulmineIungo dixit:
I can't find the actual dimention of the seal on the web. If the seal were large enough it might have been casted. In that case the that's probably where the metal was poured in the mould.

If the seal is little, as I think it is, there's a chance that could be just an imperfection of the die that left that mark during the coinage.
Although, that would be strange, because normally the die breakes in the center, where there's the maximum strain.
So, it's just a guess.
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I have just read that the original of this seal, which was discovered ~1903 at the Har Megiddo archaeological dig and subsequently sent as a gift to the Sultan of Istanbul and was subsequently lost, was not cast of metal, but was rather carved of Jasper stone. The available copies are all bronze cast copies of that original. It seems to be unknown whether the element directly underneath the lion's belly in these cast copies was present in the original, and I have not been able to find a source which ascribes meaning to it.
 
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EstQuodFulmineIungo

Civis Illustris

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Well if it is a casted copy I definitely think that blotch is the injection point, which was probably not there on the original. Although, it's remarkable how they were able to cast such a small item at the time. If I had to take another guess, probably they used "cire perdue".
 
Hawkwood

Hawkwood

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  • Civis
I'd like to see the impression made by one of these Sultan' replicas, not that having the written inscription the right way around would shed any light on it for me but just to see the image as it was intended to be seen.
 
Hawkwood

Hawkwood

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  • Civis
I had a quick check of lurgy, it just has its single meaning relating to illness. I should probably try another online dictionary.
 
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EstQuodFulmineIungo

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris
Hawkwood dixit:
Interesting word and not seen before by me. Archaeo, metal, *lurgy.

*Might be obvious to most but I wonder how that suffix or ending came to be.
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I think the first and greatest Archaeometallurgist was prof. eng. Tylecote (British), whose works in turn inspired the Italian Walter Nicodemi. Unluckily when he died his course of Archaeometallurgy was cancelled I had never had the chance to attend it... But I did study metallurgy with one of his "disciples".
 
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EstQuodFulmineIungo

Civis Illustris

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I think it's just a portmanteu word: archaeology + metallurgy = archaeometallurgy.

metallurgy = μέταλλον + ἔργον (metal + work)
 
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Michael Zwingli

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris
Hawkwood dixit:
I'd like to see the impression made by one of these Sultan' replicas, not that having the written inscription the right way around would shed any light on it for me but just to see the image as it was intended to be seen.
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I was reading online about such impressions in clay. They are called "bullas". You might try "Googling" the keywords "seal of shema bullas" to find the site I was on where there were images of the bullas, which have been discovered separately.
 
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Michael Zwingli

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Etaoin Shrdlu dixit:
It's an idea.
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I like the idea, and I just got a new Latin vocab. word! I looked up bulla, and found it to, indeed, be Latin for "bubble", "knob" (or other bubble-shaped object), and Medieval Latin for "an impression made in wax" (source of the term "papal bull"). Thanks for that! Now I see what you meant by "It grates"...it went from smooth to grating for me in about 30 seconds.
 
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