Byzantinische Bleisiegel der Staatlichen Eremitage mit Familiennamen

Byzantine lead seals are one of the Byzantine sources where the most work waits for specialists – of the perhaps 80,000 existing seals much is as yet unpublished and only a third can be described as having been more or less satisfactorily edited. The significance and value of the individual pieces is very variable. The most interest is for seals that contain historical geographical terms (especially as they are rarely found in other sources) or with personal names, whether they are names indicating origin, nicknames or actual surnames that were handed down over a number of generations. The later have immeasurable value, especially for prosopographical research; often several steps in the career of a man can be displayed, even if he is otherwise completely unknown. Tantalizing, although very difficult, is the question whether pieces that are relatively similar can be assigned to a single person, or if they belong to contemporaneous individuals with the same name. The genealogy of individual families is often better documented by seals than by all other sources. In certain cases, etymology offers clues about geographic or ethnic origin, even if it had become meaningless after several generations of near assimilation.