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Archaeologists in Turkey have unearthed more than 2,000 clay seal impressions that ancient officials once used to fasten authorities text file .
research worker discovered the pestle assembling during excavations at Doliche , an ancientRomancity located near Gaziantep in southern Turkey .
Two of the many clay seals found at Doliche in Turkey.
The clay postage range in sizing from 0.2 to 0.8 inches ( 5 to 20 millimeter ) and were used to seal documents made of papyrus and sheepskin , a material made from the skin of a sheep or goat . Each seal contained an impression of a different god or religious symbol .
" The waterproofing are small Lucius DuBignon Clay item , which had been fold up around chain that closed legal document and letters ; then a seal of approval was constrict in the Henry Clay to seal the documents,“Michael Blömer , a prof of archaeology at the University of Münster in Germany who worked on the dig , told Live Science in an email . " These seals display a wide raiment of images . Many of them show spiritual imagination like gods and goddesses … others show portraits and some also have inscriptions . "
Related:‘Ritual text ' from lost Indo - European language discovered on ancient clay tab in Turkey
An aerial view of the excavations at the former city archive in Turkey.
He added , " The analysis of the images can inform us about the ethnical affiliations of the people living in Doliche . "
At one clock time , Doliche was a significant religious center and serve as a sacred site for the Roman god Jupiter Dolichenus , the god of the sky and thunder , consort to the intelligence siteAnatolian Archaeology .
The newfound artifacts were discovered inside the ruins of the former metropolis archive building , which was in use between the mid - 2nd and mid - third 100 A.D.
However , all that persist of the edifice are several limestone walls . The document themselves " were destroyed in a major flak , possibly in A.D. 253 when the Persian queen Šāpūr I ruin numerous metropolis in the Roman province of Syria , " the land site ’s archaeologists told Anatolian Archaeology .
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" Not many ancient archive construction are known , so we go for that the excavation of the Doliche archive will shed new light on the appearance and governing body of this type of public architecture , " Blömer told Live Science .
This is n’t the first meter that Blömer and his team have found impression at Doliche . During early excavations , they unearth approximately 4,000 similar cachet at the web site .
" This show that the archive accommodated thousands of document , " he said .
