★ A beautiful, excellently preserved seal with high historical importance! ★

Nikephoros proedros and "first" of the judges.
A beautiful, rare, iconographic and in extremely fine condition
byzantine lead seal of high historical importance , (11th cent.)
Obverse: Mother of God in the middle, standing facial, nimbate and orans (in the "Blachernitissa" iconographic type), wearing maphorion and chiton, standing on a pavement, bearing Jesus Christ as infant on her chest inside a medallion, in either side a nimbate saint in praying posture towards Jesus and Theotokos, martyr Blasios (?) left wearing decorated chiton, saint Nicholaos right in prelate's garments, sigla, ΜΡ-ΘV (Mother of God), [OΑΓΙΟC]RΛC (saint Blasios?), O ΑΓΙΟC ΝΙΚΟΛΑ(ΟC) (saint Nicholaos), all within dotted border.
Reverse: Inscription in 7 lines between decorative patterns following a cross, +CΥΝΜΗ/ΤΡΙCΩΤΕΡ/ΜΑΡΤΥΡΙΘΥΗ/ΠΟΛΩCΚΕΠΟΙC/ΠΡΟΕΔΡΟΝΚΑΙ/ΚΡΙΤΩΝΝΙ/ΚΗΦΟΡΟΝ = Σὺν μητρί, Σῶτερ, μάρτυρι, θυηπόλῳ, σκέποις πρόεδρον καὶ κριτῶν Νικηφόρον (Savior, together with your Mother, the martyr, and the bishop, may you protect Nikephoros, proedros and "first" of the judges),all within dotted border.
Commentary: The inscription in the reverse consists of two twelve-syllable iambic verses. In his edition of the seal, Laurent read Μαδύτων and μαρτυρίου πόλῳ; both are erroneous. The reading of lines five and six is problematic, but the Zacos specimen supplies the missing portions, while the present is the best preserved of the other two parallels. The difficulty here is interpreting the word κριτῶν (line 6). What the inscription implies is that Nikephoros was a proedros and "first" of the judges. Does this mean he was a μέγας δρουγγάριος τῆς βίγλας? Concerning the office of the droungarios of the watch, see Laurent, Corpus 2: 465. Note also, in the same volume, no. 165, the seal of Thomas, "president" of the notaries. W. Seibt identifies the saints as Demetrios and Nicholas, and the owner of the seal as one of the nephews of the patriarch Michael Keroularios (1043–1058) in a discussion of a seal in the Zacos Collection (Mech. 26), which depicts a similar composition of three figures on the obverse (Österreich II, no. 54, and p. 82).
Bibliography: DO Seals 5 no. 129.1; Laurent, Corpus 5.3: no. 1791 (with misreadings). Similar specimen in the Fonds Zacos, BnF 3176; it is illustrated in Zacos, Seals II, pl. 63 (no. 638), but appears with the wrong entry number. See also Auktion Elsen 63, September 16 (2000), no. 1743. Cf. Seibt's review in BSl 35 (1974): 76.

A beautiful, excellently preserved seal with high historical importance!

Condition: Very Fine

Weight: 36,3 gram
Diameter: 35,1 mm