In the 19th century, the Urals became the center of stone-cutting. Russian museums house numerous Yekaterinburg seals. Interestingly, their design was based on ancient Sumerian seals. Most ancient seals were cylinder ones, so they could be rolled on the pliable clay documents.

The “Zodiac Signs” seal displayed in the museum is a regular dodecahedron — a polyhedron consisting of 12 regular pentagonal faces. The form has been chosen for practical purposes — to distribute pressure evenly, since the person using the seal applies pressure to the face that is parallel and opposite the face with the chosen image.

This type of seals usually date to the late 19th century. They were used to seal letters close with wax. This seal is distinguished by the zodiac signs on its sides. It was used by several family members at once, as indicated by inscriptions on different facets of the stone: “N.D. Masharov”, “I.D. Masharov”, and “P.D. Masharov”. The names are engraved on those faces of the dodecahedron, which have zodiac signs corresponding with the person’s date of birth. During the late 19th and into the early 20th century, such objects of decorative and applied art were very common.

Such seals with a sunken design in an ornamental stone (for example, rock crystal) are called intaglios. Intaglios were used as personal seals and were often mounted in signet rings. Similar seals have been produced in Yekaterinburg since the time of Empress Catherine II, after a large deposit of rock crystal was discovered in the Urals.

This seal was donated to the museum by V.I. Puzyreva, who, in turn, inherited it from her mother Elizaveta Vasilyevna Puzyreva. Elizaveta Vasilyevna’s address was 4-6, Minskaya Street. She shared an apartment with Taisiya Yakovlevna Masharova, N.D. Masharov’s sister-in-law, the daughter of Y.D. Masharov. Elizaveta Vasilyevna took care of Taisiya Yakovlevna when the latter got sick and was given this seal as a sign of gratitude.