Note 206 — TALE of ALI BIN BAKKAR and of SHAMS AL-NAHAR.

This must not be understood of sealing-wax, which, however, is of ancient date. The Egyptians (Herod. ii. 38) used "sealing earth" (γῆ σημαντρίς) probably clay, impressed with a signet (δακτὺλιον); the Greeks mud-clay (πηλός); and the Romans first cretula and then wax (Beckmann). Mediæval Europe had bees-wax tempered with Venice turpentine and coloured with cinnabar or similar material. The modern sealing-wax, whose distinctive is shell-lac, was brought by the Dutch from India to Europe; and the earliest seals date from about A.D. 1560. They called it Ziegel-lak, whence the German Siegel-lack, the French preferring cire-à-cacheter, as distinguished from cire-à-sceller, the softer material. The use of sealing-wax in India dates from old times and the material, though coarse and unsightly, is still preferred by Anglo-Indians because it resists heat whereas the best English softens like pitch.