Sealings and Seals from Pyramid Age Egypt

In 2005 at Giza in Egypt, teams working for Dr. Mark Lehner discovered an apparently undisturbed series of dump deposits containing about 1,200 clay sealings dating to the reign of Menkaure, builder of the last major pyramid at Giza. A core group of 424 of these sealings were impressed by just 12 seals distributed to the owners by the central government.

By reconstructing the seals of these officials and examining their uses over the period covered by the sequence of dumping deposits, we can gain an important synchronic snapshot of the development of the Egyptian state.