175, Lot: 249. Estimate $150. Sold for $96. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Severus Alexander. AD 222-235. PB Seal (20mm, 9.64 g). Laureate head right / Blank with raised central channel. Cf. M. Rostovtsew and M. Prou, Catalogue des plombs de l’antiquité, p. 17. VF, attractive surfaces.

Bearing the imperial portrait, such seals as this may have been used in an official capacity, such as the sealing of imperial dispatches or provincial rescripts carried along the cursus publicus, or imperial post highway, by the frumentarii, or imperial messengers. Unfortunately, no recent study of these historically intriguing objects had been attempted, leaving their real purpose still a matter of scholarly speculation.