TY - JOUR
TI - The Archives of Artaxata: Archival Practice in the Capital of Ancient Armenia
AU - Schreiber, Torben
TI - The Archives of Artaxata: Archival Practice in the Capital of Ancient Armenia
AB - 
	This article examines the seal impressions from Artaxata discovered in 1979/80 during excavations carried out by the Armenian Academy of Sciences on Hills V and VIII. As the archive on Hill VIII is quite small with only 20 to 25 seal impressions, the focus of this paper lies on the approximately 8,000 seal impressions found on hill V. The complex was dated to the period from 180 BC to 59 AD and it was assumed that it was a “private” archive or a kind of “chancellery.” An analysis of the finds in a wider context and the comparison with other archival complexes of the Hellenistic period as well as an examination of the characteristic features of “official” seals (size, image, shape, number of impressions) leads to the conclusion that it must have been a public archive, most probably it is the city archive of Artaxata.
VL - 2021
IS - Volume 28
PY - 2021
SN - 1897-3426
C1 - 2084-3909
SP - 277
EP - 310
DO - 10.4467/20800909EL.21.017.13375
UR - https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/electrum/article/the-archives-of-artaxata-archival-practice-in-the-capital-of-ancient-armenia
KW - Hellenistic
KW - Archives
KW - Seals
KW - Sealings
KW - Armenia
KW - Artaxata