Theoktistos, imperial protospatharios, 10th century. Seal (Lead, 18 mm, 4.69 g, 12 h). V/Π/O-ΠA/N/T, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple of Jerusalem or 'Hypopante': the Theotokos standing to right, prestenting infant Christ to Symeon, standing to left; altar in between. Rev. +ΘЄO/KTICTO / R,ACΠAΘ/APIO in four lines. Unpublished in the standard references. Some surface cracks and roughness , otherwise, good very fine.

The Presentation of Christ is an exceedingly rare narrative scene appearing on only a handful of Byzantine seals (cf. Laurent, Corpus II, 554 and Sandrovskaja, Sfragistika, 774). According to Luke 2:22-38, Symeon was a just and devout man to whom the Holy Spirit revealed that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's messiah. When the holy family entered the Jerusalem Temple to fulfill the requirements of the Law of Moses, Symeon was inspired by the Holy Spirit to meet them there, and when he did, he took the infant Christ in his arms and sang praise to God, much to the marvel of Joseph and Mary. Our seal represents the earliest rendering of this scene, with Christ still being in his mother's hands, wherease the later and more familiar variant, it is Symeon who holds Christ