As in the case of doors of houses and store-chambers, so also with boxes, the lids were sealed down to secure their contents.
On nearly all ancient Egyptian boxes that have been found are to be seen two knobs (or the holes into which they were fastened), one on the lid, the other on the box itself. Fig. 13 shows how these were placed, and with a piece of string, a lump of clay and a seal, it was an easy matter to secure the contents; all that had to be done was to follow the same process that has already been described for securing doors.
[Illustration: Fig. 14. A PAPYRUS ROLL, TIED UP AND SEALED. (This hieroglyph was used as a determinative of all abstract words from a very early period.)]
(_b_) _For authenticating Documents, etc._
With the advance of civilization, and the development of the art and practice of writing, the seal began to be employed for documents also. Till very recent times writing has been an accomplishment of few except professional scribes, hence it was natural that seals which bore the personal badge or mark of the owner, began to be used by those who could not write their names for giving that authenticity and authority to a document which is now more usually conferred by a written signature. Legal documents were therefore attested by the seal, and a legal contract was known in Egypt by the name [Egyptian **] _Khetemt_, “the sealed.”[14] But the method of attaching the seal to the document was different in ancient times to that of the present day. The old Egyptian, instead of impressing with his signet the surface of the sheet of papyrus, used to roll it up,[15] tie it round with string, and then, after knotting the string in the middle of the roll, he affixed the clay to the knot and sealed it (see fig. 14). Thus the roll could not be opened, and consequently the writing of it could not be altered nor new matter introduced without the seal being first broken, and the mere breaking of the seal would be legal proof enough to show that the document had been tampered with. It is not till the Ptolemaïc period that there is an instance of a document _stamped_ with ink,[16] although the stamp in paint has been shown to be as early as the Eighteenth Dynasty.[17] A familiar instance of the use of the seal for legal documents is given by the prophet Jeremiah. Having bought a field of Hanameel, he payed the owner seventeen shekels of silver for it; then subscribed the evidence and sealed it. This being done, he took the evidence of the purchaser, “both that which was sealed according to the law and custom and that which was open,” and gave it to Baruch in order that it might be put in an earthen vessel, and so preserved in case of any dispute. (Jeremiah xxxii, 9-14.)