Page 20 - Museo Orientale "Umbero Scerrato" - Catalogo

evidenza l’importanza culturale dei sigilli del Vicino
Oriente antico: questi piccoli manufatti, eseguiti da
artigiani specializzati che in alcuni casi non esiteremmo
a definire veri e propri artisti, costituiscono una fonte
inesauribile di informazioni e pertanto contribuiscono
in larga parte alla ricostruzione della storia politica,
sociale, economica, delle tecniche, del pensiero e
dell’arte delle civiltà del Vicino Oriente preclassico.
2. LA COLLEZIONE DI SIGILLI DE ‘L’ORIENTALE’
I 37 sigilli che compongono la collezione de
‘L’Orientale’ provengono dal mercato antiquario dove
furono acquistati alla metà degli anni ’60 del secolo
scorso dal professor Giovanni Garbini,9 per lunghi anni
docente di Semitistica presso l’Ateneo napoletano, e
da lui stesso generosamente donati all’istituzione.
I sigilli furono magistralmente studiati e pubblicati a
più riprese, nella prima metà degli anni ’70, da Luigi
Cagni (1971 e 1972), Stefania CampurraMazzoni (1972)
eAlessandro de Maigret (1974).Agli studi accuratissimi
e documentatissimi dei tre autori è totalmente debitrice
chi scrive: le schede di catalogo che seguono conservano
inalterate le informazioni relative ai materiali dei sigilli,
le datazioni, le attribuzioni di iconografia e stile, la lettura
market, which was continuously fueled by the
clandestine excavations that followed in the wake of
regular ones. From the beginning, the great popularity
of seals and the demand for them coming from both
European museums and private collectors generated a
flourishing forgery market, which is unfortunately still
active today. Skilled forgers put a great number of fake
seals on the market. Experts, however, learned how to
spot them out, since the makers used original seals
from different periods as models, and hence
assembled chronologically incompatible materials,
themes and inscriptions (Collon 1990: 56-57).
These brief remarks clearly show the cultural
importance of seals in the Ancient Near East. These
small artifacts, made by specialized craftsmen who in
some cases we would not hesitate to hail as true artists,
constitute an inexhaustible source of information,
contributing in a major way to the reconstruction of the
political, social and economic history of the pre-
Classical Near East, and to the history of its technology,
thought, art and civilization.
2. THE SEAL COLLECTION OF ‘L’ORIENTALE’
The 37 seals that form the seal collection of
‘L’Orientale’ come from the antiquarian market. They
were purchased in the mid-1960s by Professor
Giovanni Garbini,9 who taught Semitic Studies for
many years at the Orientale, to which he generously
donated the seals.
The seals were repeatedly studied and published in
the early 1970s by Luigi Cagni (1971 and 1972),
Stefania Campurra Mazzoni (1972), and Alessandro
de Maigret (1974). The present writer is deeply
indebted to these three authors’ extremely accurate
and well-documented studies. The following object
descriptions thus reproduce, unaltered, the information
provided by these authors as regards the materials the
Museo Orientale ‘Umberto Scerrato’ 20
Fig. 2. I gioielli di Lady Layard/Lady Layard’s jewellery (British
Museum, London). © Trustees of the British Museum.