[First posted in AWOL 14 May 2014, updated 29 January 2019]
IconA Databases: the iconography of Aegean Bronze Age glyptic
The IconAegean Databases
Janice Crowley has created three
Databases, IconAegean, IconAData and IconADict, to explore the
iconography of Aegean Bronze Age glyptic. The Databases were launched at
the Institute for Classical Archaeology at Heidelberg University, the
two IconA Databases on Friday 2 May 2014 and the IconAegean Database on
20 June 2016, and they are now freely available on the CMS Website. They
are subject only to the usual protocol of acknowledging the source of
the information in any research or publication that uses the Databases,
in this case CMS Heidelberg and IconAegean.
The IconAegean Database
This Database holds all the seals in the
CMS Volumes: 9,181 seals, signets and sealings giving 10,972 designs on
seal faces. Each design is shown as a drawing of the impression and
described in a standard vocabulary especially created for Aegean glyptic
iconography, the IconA Classification. CMS data is also provided. All
data may be searched by Key Words across any of the Database fields.
It is now possible to order all these
seal faces iconographically by sorting on the IconA Code field. Once
that sort is performed all the images on the seal faces will be placed
in order according to the IconA Classification starting with human
figures, stylised humans and human artefacts, then moving through
fantastic creations, fauna, sea life and flora, and on through
geometric, script and miscellaneous. Users may then click through the
Corpus enjoying the collections of similar images as they appear in
sequence. This provision for organizing the seal images according to
their iconography is a first in Aegean art studies.
At present more data is being uploaded
into the IconAegean Database in the iconographic and CMS fields. The
first three iconographic fields (the Category, Theme and Icon fields)
are already complete and may be searched for full results. Searching on
other fields will, at present, only give incomplete results. However,
use of the Category, Theme and Icon fields will provide a user-friendly
access into the iconography of Aegean seals.
The IconAData Database
This Database holds 1000 seal designs
especially chosen to illustrate the range of Aegean seal iconography.
The choice has been made mostly from the CMS archives but also includes
another 7 gold signets. It is set up in the same format as the
IconAegean Database.
The IconADict Database
This Database holds the Dictionary of
the Key Words including the 590 iconographic terms of the IconA
Classification which describe the seal designs. These Key Words are
defined and are used to search on the fields in the IconAegean and
IconAData Databases. There are also Key Word entries covering the CMS
terms, Database explanations for working with FileMaker Pro and Notes to
help the User. The 590 Key Words comprising the iconographic terms of
the IconA Classification are also discussed in the Author’s Aegaeum 34
Volume,
The Iconography of Aegean Seals.
Les sceaux-cylindres de l’ancien Proche-Orient sont de petits objets gravés d’une illustration, figurative ou non, et parfois d’un texte ; ils ont été fabriqués et utilisés entre 3300 et 300 av. J.-C. Généralement en pierre dure et grosso modo de la taille d’un bouchon de bouteille, ils étaient déroulés sur l’argile fraîche afin de sceller les récipients, les fermetures de portes, ou pour laisser une empreinte sur certaines catégories de textes cunéiformes. La fonction principale de ces scellements était d’authentifier les transactions ou de protéger l’accès aux biens et aux bâtiments.
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