Sphragistics is a special historical discipline, the subject of which is seals (matrices and impressions). In the traditional view, a seal attached or attached to a document is a sign certifying its legal force, indicating its origin and confirming its authenticity. Considering the significance of the seal in this aspect, historians used it for external criticism of the source. As a result, sphragistics played the role of an auxiliary discipline of diplomacy, while in this case it was an auxiliary discipline of history not directly, but indirectly - through diplomacy. At present, Soviet and foreign historical science increasingly asserts the view that sphragistic material can provide effective assistance in the study of a number of problems, primarily the history of state institutions, the formation of centralized management and chancellery, the evolution of state power, the formation of state symbols, which, in turn, was a consequence of the political orientation of the state, and etc. The formulation of these and similar questions is connected with the changing tasks of sfragistics: at the present stage of research, the press, without losing its significance in the source criticism of the document, is increasingly acting as an independent source. (It is no coincidence that sphragistics is no longer called an auxiliary, but a special historical discipline.) Such a direction of domestic sphragistic research, when seals are a source in the study of a number of important problems, is developed mainly on the material found during archaeological excavations - Old Russian bulls1 . Press-wax (wax-mastic) impressions are currently not so actively introduced into scientific circulation, but in the last two decades there has been a tendency to subject individual thematic or territorial groups of wax seals2 to more or less systematic analysis, which can be considered as a pledge 1 See: Yanin V. L. Study of Old Russian seals. In: Auxiliary historical disciplines (VIEW). Issue ... Read more