★ The famous Skleros family ★

Konstantinos Skleros, proedros, 2nd half of 11th century. Seal (Lead, 27 mm, 17.16 g, 12 h). M/I-X St. Michael standing facing, wearing loros and holding trefoil scepter in his right hand and globe in his left. Rev. ΓPAΦAC / CΦPAΓIZω / ΠPωЄΔP૪ / KωN T૪ C/KΛHPO ('I seal the letters of Konstantinos Skleros, proedros') in five lines. W. Seibt: Zwischen Identifizierungsrausch und -verweigerung: Zur Problematik synchroner homonymer Siegel, in: in C. Ludwig (ed.): Siegel und Siegler. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien, pp. 141-145, no. 10. Wassiliou-Seibt, Corpus 475. Very fine.

Werner Seibt showed that several members of the famous Skleros family were named Konstantinos in the 11th century, and at least some of them must be contemporaneous. It is likely that all seals with a standing St. Michael on the obverse belong to the same person: two types have conventional legends which mention the high court dignity of proedros (Seibt 11 and 12), and three other pieces have differing metric legend compositions (Seibt 8-10, of which our seal is an example of no. 10). Seibt 13, a seal with a half-length bust of St. Michael on the obverse, apparently belongs to the same official, but it comes from an earlier stage of his career, when he was kouropalates. It also mentions the military office of doux. The seal published by Seibt only had a fragmentary legend, but lot 1761 below, a recently surfaced example (ex Obolos 11 (2018), 776, there erroneously dated to the late 10th century), in fact confirms his reading.