Preface Joan Aruz; 1. Introduction: small windows, wide views Marta Ameri, Sarah Kielt Costello, Gregg Jamison, Sarah Scott; Part I. The Ancient Near East and Cyprus: 2. Administrative role of seal imagery in the early Bronze Age: Mesopotamian and Iranian traders on the Plateau Holly Pittman; 3. Slave labor: Uruk cylinder seal imagery and early writing Sarah Jarmer Scott; 4. The first female bureaucrats: gender and glyptic in 4th-3rd Millennia Northern Mesopotamia Andrew McCarthy; 5. Rematerializing the early dynastic banquet seal Sarah Kielt Costello; 6. Sealing practices in the Akkadian period Yelena Z. Rakic; 7. Authenticity, seal recarving, and authority in the ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean Joanna Smith; Part II. South Asia and Persian Gulf: 8. Indus seals and glyptic studies: an overview Asko Parpola; 9. Letting the pictures speak: an image-based approach to the mythological and narrative imagery of the Harappan world Marta Ameri; 10. Understanding Indus seal carving traditions: a stylistic and metric approach Gregg Jamison; 11. Operational sequences and stamp seals: a new approach to identifying groups of seal carvers in the Indus civilization Adam Green; 12. Seals and sealing technology in the Dilmun culture: the post Harappan life of the Indus Valley sealing tradition Steffen Laursen; Part III. Egypt: 13. The evolution of Ancient Egyptian seals and sealing systems Joe Wegner; 14. Early dynastic sealing practices as reflection of state formation in Egypt? Ilona Regulski; 15. Sealings and seals from pyramid Age Egypt John Nolan; 16. The administrative use of scarabs during the middle kingdom Daphna Ben Tor; 17. Middle and new kingdom sealing practice in Egypt and Nubia: a comparison Stuart Tyson Smith; Part IV. Aegean: 18. Introductory remarks, Aegean Judith Weingarten; 19. Aegean Bronze Age sealstones and fingerrings: chronology and functions John Younger; 20. An Aegean seal in Greek hands? Thoughts on the perception of Aegean seals in the Iron Age Maria Anastasiadou; 21. Cryptic glyptic: multivalency in Minoan glyptic imagery Erin Mcgowan; 22. The magic and the mundane: the function of 'talismanic class' stones in Minoan Crete Angela Murock Hussein.