Clay Seals of Ancient China

This display is comprised of over two hundred ancient Chinese clay seals selected from more than six hundred examples in the Tokyo National Museum collection.

In ancient China, important documents and containers were sealed to safeguard their contents by first binding them with strings and then covering the knots with clay. The clay was then embossed with a stamp that clearly indicated the sealer's full name and official position.

Clay seals were fashionable during the Qin dynasty (221 - 207 BC), the Western Han dynasty (206BC - 7 AD), and the Xin dynasty (8 - 23 AD), when paper was rarely used and documents were normally written on wooden or bamboo tablets. They were convenient because the writer could shave the surface when they made mistakes, but this was also a problem that the text could be tampered with easily. Therefore, important documents had to be carefully protected. Clay seals were an effective way, because in order to open the document, it was necessary to either cut the string or break the clay seal. If the document was opened in one or the other of these methods, it was necessary to make a new clay seal using the same stamp to conceal the fact.

These clay seals are valuable historical research materials for the study of social systems because they include many with impressions of official government stamps as well as private stamps of various important individuals. They are also objects of appreciation due to the high quality of the seal carvings.