Ancient Writing. a Cylindrical Stone Seal

Cylinder seals appeared in Mesopotamia (Uruk Period, 4100-3300 BC).

They were small cylinders, made of stone, glass or other materials, often semi-precious stones, with a carved relief, which when rolled on a clay tablet left the motifs engraved, either as a record of the content of some containers or as a seal on documents.

They used to have a drawing accompanied by a short text, which identified its owner, so that they were used administratively as a signature, certificate or approval of an official.

In other cases they represented daily, religious and economic scenes.

The print could be extended indefinitely, so that the result was a frieze, which gave it a decorative appearance.

You will need:

• One or two stones of the right size
• A rotary tool with small bits.
• (convenient) a bench grinder.
• Multi-grain sandpapers (and preferably a belt sander).
• Scraps of wood.
• Some kind of plasticine or clay.
• Wood polishing wax.

The first thing we need is a stone of a suitable size, so we don't have to work on it too much.

It's important that it must be a hard and smooth stone, because if we use a porous stone this will be reflected in the impression

In my case I found a stone that was already almost cylindrical.

It is convenient to take another similar stone because later we will need to do tests with the rotary tool.

We need to get closer to the shape of a cylinder and for that we have to remove excess material.

Be careful to protect your eyes and wear a mask so you don't swallow dust.

Depending on the hardness of the stone, it can be more or less harder to make the shape.

In my case it is quite a hard stone.

I start to shape it with the help of the bench grinder to approximate the shape to a cylinder, although the finish is rough and uneven, but it will be faster to remove material with this tool.

Once the shape is approximated, we sand with a medium grain belt sander (in my case 80) (or by hand, but of course it will be harder), to leave the surface smoother and more regular.

To get a stone as smooth as possible we give sand it manually with the finest sandpaper we have. (In my case 1000). When we finish it will already have a very smooth and almost shiny appearance.

A coat of furniture polish will make the stone brighter and help us distinguish the engraving when we start to do it. In addition, the wax will help the plasticine not stick when we are using the seal.

We can make a drawing directly on the stone, but in my case I am not a very good at drawing and I need a reference, so the first thing I have to do is take the measurement of the space that I have available along the cylinder.

You just have to roll the cylinder on the paper.

When preparing the drawing to transfer it to the cylinder, we must keep in mind that the stamp impression on the plasticine will come out inverse to the drawing we engrave, so we have to invert the drawing we want to make.

I have used a sheet of carbon paper to transfer the drawing to the stone. You just have to be careful that the paper does not move, but otherwise it does not have more difficulty than to pass the pencil through the drawing with the carbon paper underneath.

Before starting to make the engraving on the cylinder that we have prepared, it is convenient to use a similar stone that we had previously looked for to make tests with the different bits of the rotary tool, to get an idea of the tool that will be most useful in all the working areas.

In this case, since they are lines and there is no need to make large carved surfaces, I have used the thinest I had.

There are many types of specific bits for each type of job. I just used a very fine generic one,

But it would be convenient for you to find out about the specifications of each tip.

Now you just have to pass the multitool through the drawing.

I advise you to make one round loosely first, in order to better control the direction, and then several more rounds to give it depth.

Depending on how hard the stone is, we will need more or less passes. In my case I needed 4.

We can test the stamp on any piece of clay or modeling clay. I have used plasticine, and first I have made a small wooden support of a size close to the stamp, so it is easier to store.

We already have our cylinder seal ready.

You just have to turn the stone on the plasticine applying a little pressure.

With this technique you can have a nice personalized stamp with a historical touch.