gems, ancient gems, glyptic, archaeology, archaeogemology, ancient history, beads, species, treatment nomenclature, Near Eastern, Western Asiatic, cylinder seals

A system of nomenclature for the consistent description of archaeological artefacts made from quartz has been developed, based upon published mineralogical texts. The system has been found to be useful in the description of cylinder seals from Western Asia and the results obtained suggest that the provision of consistent identifications may be valuable in tracing the evolution of material usage over time.