ANCIENT BREAD STAMPS FROM JORDAN

Marking bread was an old practice performed in different parts of the old world. It was done for religious, magical, economic and identification purposes. Bread stamps differ from other groups of stamps. Accordingly, the aim of this article is to identify such stamps, displayed or stored, in a number of Jordanian Archaeological Museums. A collection of twelve ancient bread stamps were identified and studied. Two of the stamps were of unknown provenance while the others came from al-Shuneh, Dhiban, Khirbet an-Nawafla, Abu-Sido and Jerash. The stamps are presented according to their museum collection since a chronological classification could not be achieved due to the fact that the majority of the stamps were purchased from antiquities dealers.