Skip to content
sigillography
EntityQ379838· pop 40· linked from 612 articles

sigillography

Sign in to save

Also known as sphragistics

thumb|right|upright=1.5|19th-century drawings of the seal of Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke|Richard de Clare ("Strongbow"), Earl of Pembroke (1130–1176)

Wikidata facts

Instance of
specialized term
Show 5 more facts
topic's main category
Category:Sigillography
Commons category
Sigillography
different from
Indology
language of work or name
Chinese
Sources (1)

via Wikidata · CC0

~3 min read

Encyclopedic overview

5 sections
Contents
  • Etymology
  • History
  • Popular culture
  • See also
  • References

thumb|right|upright=1.5|19th-century drawings of the seal of Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke|Richard de Clare ("Strongbow"), Earl of Pembroke (1130–1176)

Sigillography, also known by its Greek-derived name, sphragistics, is the scholarly discipline that studies the wax, lead, clay, and other seals used to authenticate archival documents. It investigates not only aspects of the artistic design and production of seals (both matrices and impressions), but also considers the legal, administrative and social contexts in which they were used. It has links to diplomatics, heraldry, social history, and the history of art, and is regarded as one of the auxiliary sciences of history. A student of seals is known as a sigillographer.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “sigillography” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (2)