**6. Seals**

John's seals portray an enthroned Christ on the obverse and John himself on the reverse (Figure 11) [38,39]. The iconography of Christ is the same as John's coinage, showing Christ with a cruciform halo, and the standard iconographic classical clothing of the *chiton* and the *himation*. In all known examples, John is depicted standing, wearing a *loros* and crown, and he is holding in his left hand a *globus cruciger*, and in his right, the military *labarum*. These are similar to the iconography of John's coinage, though no seal has exactly the same combination of regalia as a specific coin. Though many surviving seals are in poor condition, from those in a better state we can see that John's titles are often more prominent than the coins (which, as shown above, usually display a simple ιῶ as a short form of Ioannes, perhaps with one title). The standard formula appears to have been ᾿Ιωἀννῃ δεσπóτῃ τῷ <sup>π</sup>oρϕυρoγεννή<sup>τ</sup>ῳ, drawing on John's status as *porphyrogennetos* 'born in the purple' and *despotes*, lord or master, though this is given in shortened form.

**Figure 11.** Seal of John; Zacos Collection, Geneva; Inv. CdN 2004-582. Published in [38,39].
