Zoe’s lead seal: female invocation to the Annunciation of the Virgin

Representations of the Annunciation, like those of other feasts of the church calendar, were not particularly common in the iconography of lead seals, which were used by the Byzantines to secure the confidentiality of their correspondence.1 Most of the surviving examples date from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, although the subject can be found on such seals from as early as the sixth century.2