TESSERA (Clay) Greek/Roman - Help anyone?

Both are totally real. The first is from Asia Minor, probably Ephesus. The second is from Rome, but the design is probably misdescribed. The designs on the cast ones can be super difficult to interpret. I can't make it out from the photo.

 

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Exactly! That was probably me.

 

Thanks, everyone. (Esp. Mag. Max.)
I am definitely leaning towards 'papyras bulla' (for my piece) because of the flat reverse.
(From 'Et Tu Antiquities
Bullae are small clay pellets which were commonly used to close and notarize papyrus documents in the Hellenistic and early Roman eras. Each carries an impression of an individual's seal ring on the obverse and the imprint of the papyrus fibers on the reverse. It is also common to find remnants of the sealer's fingerprint along the edges from the forming of the impression. The iconography depicted on bullae is individualized to the sealer and is a personal badge of importance to the person and/or his family. Somewhere in these bullae's long history, a fire probably destroyed the papyrus documents and preserved the unbaked clay. The(y) range in size from 10 to 20 millimeters across (3/8 to 3/4 inch) and portray a bit of the diversity available. (Mine 22mm x 18mm x 4mm. 1.67 gm.)
I will remove it from my coin collection, and I shall place it amongst my 'antiquities'.

 

Does it have a channel running through it that a string or cord could have gone through?

 

Any answer on this yet?

 

The holes should look like these (if you can see them in the crappy pic I did). These are from a group that came to market in the early 90's (maybe before that, its just when I bought mine). The new ones clearly look fake to me (especially those with rare emperors). What bothers me is that the new ones look very close to the old ones in fabric, if not style.

 

It doesn't appear to have a channel like you describe.

 

Interesting, I'll email Gert again about this new revelation!

 

The OP image looks a lot like the impression of a stamp seal. Even today some letter writers pour hot wax over the flap of an envelope and press stamp seals into the wax. If one side is a head, the other side is flat. It is common, in order to see the design of the seal better, to make impressions, sometimes in clay. Dealers do this when selling seals. I have a number of clay impressions of supposedly ancient seals (I don't have any seals, just old, but modern, impressions they made). So, I suggest the OP impression might be a modern impression of a stamp seal. Whether the original seal was ancient or not, I do not know.

 

@> Valentinian - I agree. I wrote -
Bullae are small clay pellets which were commonly used to close and notarize papyrus documents in the Hellenistic and early Roman eras. Each carries an impression of an individual's seal ring on the obverse and the imprint of the papyrus fibers on the reverse . . . . . . . . . . .
I will remove it from my coin collection, and I shall place it amongst my 'antiquities'.

 

If it is lacking this channel, I am almost certain it is a fake.

 

@Ardatirion While I appreciate your input, I am afraid that 'almost' doesn't cut it.
There are many of these that do not have holes for 'strings' because they have been used in other ways (such as to 'notorize' and to 'identify'). They were not only used to 'seal' a document by binding the two ends of a piece of 'string' around a document. Therefore, the absence of a 'hole', in itself, is not 'damning'.

 

.

 

Can you provide a citation? The only pieces I know of that are lacking this feature are from Seleukia and, if memory serves correct, of an entirely different fabric. I've spilled a lot of ink on this.

"Almost" is very close to certain for me, in this case. You could confirm it by going through the current offerings on ebay and finding a match. They are all from the same source and all unequivocally fake.

 

End.

 

TC... did you read the Forvm link provided by Ardy in post #7? Savoca has sold more than 250 of these fakes. The fabric is mostly the same. Some are reddish terra cotta, others yellowish, others darker. Some were manufactured with smooth backs, some with papyrus texturing. The figures are from a wide range of time. Some of the papyrus-imprinted pieces have matching papyrus impressions. That alone is damning.

 

Wow, that's pretty bad.

 

Notice that the papyrus imprint on the second and third example shown above was made from the same imprinting device:



That same texturing device appears on many of their sold "bullae".

 

Gee, that kind of 'seals' the deal, doesn't it.

 

[rimshot]