Seal of Amalric, king of Jerusalem (DO BZS.1951.31.5.2939)
King Amalric’s lead seal, attached by a string, traveled with official documents. A seal has two sides, known as the obverse and the reverse.
King Amalric’s lead seal witnesses the existence of the newly formed Christian kingdom of Jerusalem after the First Crusade. Amalric took the throne some sixty years after the foundation of the kingdom. Under Amalric, military losses against Egypt strengthened the position of one of the region’s most powerful generals, Saladin.
On the obverse side, Amalric, king of Jerusalem (1163–1174), is seated on a backless throne surrounded by a Latin inscription translating to “Seal of Amalric.” The reverse side contains three famous religious buildings of Jerusalem: the Holy Sepulchre, marking the site of Christ’s crucifixion and tomb; the Tower of David, an ancient structure believed to be part of the palace of David, a king of Israel in the Hebrew Bible; and the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine that the crusaders repurposed as a Latin church and called the Templum Domini (“Temple of the Lord”). Surrounding the structures is an inscription in Latin that translates to “King of Jerusalem.”
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Contents of this path:
- What is this?
- When was the Seal of Amalric made?
- Why was the Seal of Amalric made and how was it used?
- How was the Seal of Amalric made?
- Who made the Seal of Amalric?
- Where was the Seal of Amalric produced?
- Where did the Seal of Amalric go?
- What does the Seal of Amalric tell us about the Crusades?
- Seal of Amalric: Sources and Further Reading
