By Omar Afifi '24

Seals have been used for many years as a method to authenticate and legitimize the documents they accompanied. Therefore, this seal would accompany official documents as a modern-day stamp–it wasn’t on the document directly, however. Similar to coins that were used as currency during the same time period, a seal had to be consistently made because inconsistencies signaled inauthenticity. In fact, the seal had to be consistent across all rulers of the kingdom with a slight variation of the name of the current ruler—see “what is this?” to learn more. In essence, one can argue that the seal was also made to serve as a testament to the existence of the newly established Christian kingdom of Jerusalem. It allowed the new government to set a standard between legitimate and illegitimate documents. 

Unlike a stamp, this seal was wrapped around the envelope of the document using a string. If we take a closer look at the seal’s top and bottom, we see indentations–more prevalent at the bottom. These indentations are the locations where the string would wrap around the seal to attach it to the documents. The string would go across the seal and wrap over both indentations multiple times. This gives us an idea of how the seal was used to authenticate government documents and the method it accompanied the documents. Interestingly, in order to access the document inside the sealed envelope, the governmental seal would have to be broken which served as an extra measure of security.