Antiquities Discussion Forums > Seals and Tesserae

Byzantine Seal needs reading

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djmacdo:
A friend acquire the following seal.  It is far from my area, and I would appreciate any help in reading it.

Lech Stępniewski:
Why should it be a seal? It looks like an ordinary anonymous Byzantine follis with Christ.

djmacdo:
Well, it is made of lead rather than bronze, and it has a typical channel like all other seals--so it in all probabilities a seal.

Joe Sermarini:
That is the Virgin Mary on the obverse, with MP - ΘV (Greek abbreviation: Mητηρ Θεου - Mother of God) across the field.

The reverse doesn't match any anonymous folles.

Ideally, if you want help reading it you should post whatever letters you think you can read.

Gert:
Hard to read this one as there is a lot of damage. I read on the rev.:

+KE ROH
ΘEI [ΛE]ONT,
…PW
KAI ΔOVKI
…

"Lord, help Leon ... and doux..." The 3rd line will have his court dignity, which might be [proed]ro (proedros or protoproedros if there's an A before). The last couple of lines will have his family name and/or the location of his ducate (a doux was a military commander).
Regards
Gert

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