Sealing wax is a wax material of a seal which, after melting, hardens quickly (to paper, parchment, ribbons and wire, and other material), forming a bond that is difficult to break without noticeable tampering. Wax is used to verify that something such as a document is unopened, to verify the sender's identity (for example with a seal stamp or signet ring), and as decoration. Sealing wax can also be used to take impressions of other seals. Wax was used to seal letters close and later, from about the 16th century, envelopes. Long before sealing wax was employed, the Romans used bitumen for this purpose.
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Sealing wax in the context of Seal (emblem)
A seal is a device for making an impression in wax, clay, paper, or some other medium, including an embossment on paper, and is also the impression thus made. The original purpose was to authenticate a document, or to prevent interference with a package or envelope by applying a seal which had to be broken to open the container (hence the modern English verb "to seal", which implies secure closing without an actual wax seal).
The seal-making device is also referred to as the seal matrix or die; the imprint it creates as the seal impression (or, more rarely, the sealing). If the impression is made purely as a relief resulting from the greater pressure on the paper where the high parts of the matrix touch, the seal is known as a dry seal; in other cases ink or another liquid or liquefied medium is used, in another color than the paper.
View the full Wikipedia page for Seal (emblem)Sealing wax in the context of Impression seal
The stamp seal (also impression seal) is a common seal die, frequently carved from stone, known at least since the 6th millennium BC (Halaf culture) and probably earlier. The dies were used to impress their picture or inscription into soft, prepared clay and sometimes in sealing wax.
The oldest stamp seals were button-shaped objects with primitive ornamental forms chiseled onto them. The stamp seals were replaced in the 4th millennium BC by cylinder seals that had to be rolled over the soft clay to leave an imprint. From the 12th century BC the previous designs were largely abandoned in favor of amphora stamps. Romans introduced their signaculum around the first century BC; Byzantine maintained the tradition in their commercial stamps.
View the full Wikipedia page for Impression sealSealing wax in the context of Sigillography
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.
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