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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Bronwen, post: 12378909, member: 5833&quot;]I have yet to come across any serious work taking up the question of why stones used for seals were chosen, beyond the consideration of powers they were thought to have, such as the protection amethyst provides against inebriation.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I have never examined cylinder seals closely, neither directly nor in photos, but I have spent time with the study collection at the Met, which displays what must be 1,000 tiny ring stones from Greco-Roman sources.&nbsp; Solid colors, especially carnelian, predominate, with banded agate coming in second.&nbsp; The agates were not generally used the way we are accustomed to seeing, with one color layer used for the figure &amp; another for the ground.&nbsp; Instead, the plane of the layers is perpendicular to the plane of the hand, making any engraving difficult to make out until it is pressed into wax or clay.&nbsp; The irregular markings in most jaspers also tend to obscure the engraving.</p><p><br /></p><p>I have to think that how easily a seal could be read by a casual observer was a deliberate choice, one of the factors in the selection of stone.&nbsp; You could flaunt it, as with the nicolo Victory in the big gold Roman ring Davey posted, or conceal it behind the Venetian blinds provided by a striped stone.&nbsp; What I really can&#039;t recall seeing is the use of stones with conspicuous inclusions of the dendritic sort.&nbsp; Possibly due to beliefs about the nature of them; possibly because of unpredictable behavior under the engraving process.&nbsp; They may be more prone to fracture.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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