It is perhaps not without significance that an article on a Syriac theme should appear in this volume dedicated to Professor Sidney Smith, for it is recognized that his work has influenced many aspects of Semitic studies. This brief essay is therefore offered as a small tribute.

My colleague Dr. A. D. H. Bivar very kindly drew my attention to the Syriac legend on one of the Sasanian seals in the British Museum of which he is preparing a catalogue. This seal, B.M. 119393 (Plate IV, a), may be briefly described as follows:

The provenance of the seal is unknown.

On the grounds of its profile shape Dr. Bivar assigns the date of this seal to c. A.D. 400. An examination of the script does not argue against this view. In particular, the shape of the letter š, its head closed with a horizontal stroke, has not been found so far in lapidary texts earlier than the 5 th century.

The Syriac legend of the seal, reading anti-clockwise from the back of the head of the figure, may be deciphered:

For the first word ‘br provides no satisfactory meaning, ‘bd may be interpreted as “made by”, but a verb would be out of place here. We should therefore regard this part of the legend as a pr. n., ‘abed SRYK’.