Who Holds the Keys? Identifying Female Administrators at Shahr-i Sokhta

ABSTRACT In recent years scholars who study ancient economies have sharpened their focus on the role of women within these networks and on use of seals in their administration. Yet, until recently, little attention has been paid to the relationship between sex and seal ownership and/or use. This paper uses the remarkable evidence from the site of Shahr-i Sokhta in Iran to address this question. While seals from the habitation areas of the site demonstrate significant changes in shape, material and iconography over time, those found in the necropolis establish who owned seals and how they were worn. On the practical side, excavated sealings document the administration of the site. This paper compares the physical and iconographic aspects of seals found in the cemetery with those of seals used for administrative sealing to identify different groups of people responsible for controlling goods and resources. I use the observed similarity between seals used for sealing and those found buried in women's graves to suggest that women were responsible for most of the administrative sealing at Shahr-i Sokhta in the mid-third millennium BC, and to call into question the often-unchallenged assumption that men were by default responsible for administration in ancient societies.