Heidelberg University Publishing

Abstract Among the artefacts from the ancient Mediterranean, precious stones decorated with images, the gems, are of particular importance not only because of the variety of their motifs. Rather, in the Hellenistic and Roman imperial pe­riods, they were regarded as objects in which the beauty of nature was particularly condensed. The small size of the surfaces required a high degree of precision in their treatment. The enhan­cement of a natural visual effect through human alterations seems to have led to great admiration. At least this is suggested by the regular mentions of stone carvers in the literary sources in which gemstones and their pictorial representations are imagined. In addition to references to the percep­tible characteristics of the object and the motif, there are also references to the name of the per­son who carved it: A human being inscribed itself in an object that was initially seen as the result of a natura artifex.

The article focuses on the results of such pro­cesses. The object-related characteristics of gemstones will be examined from three perspectives in order to focus thematically on signature-bearing artefacts. Firstly, they will be considered as exam­ples of a creative reaction to the need for extreme foreshortening. This is because all forms of writing on such objects are in the millimetre range and their perception on the preserved objects often poses a particular challenge without magnifica­tion techniques. Closely linked to this is the second aspect, the relational structure of signature and image composition in the sense of the arrangement of individual elements in the pictorial space. The third aspect is the connection between signatures and the use of the objects. For while the visual ra­dius of perception of all pictorial elements on the gems themselves can be categorised as compa­ratively small, it could be significantly increased through the use of the objects.

Keywords Ancient Glyptic; Greeks Gems; Roman Gems; Signatures; Sealing Practices