Who Signed The First Autograph?

27 Sep 2021

One of the most desired and sought after personalised gifts online is an autograph from a famous celebrity that they admire, and the personalised celebrity collectable has become a cottage industry.

Whilst autograph hunting has become a passion, obsession and in some cases career of many people over the past century, its origins span much further back than you may think.

The earliest surviving example is on an ancient Sumerian pictographic tablet, one of the earliest surviving written documents of any kind.

On the back of what appears to be a lexical list of titles and jobs, there is a signature of the scribe who etched it into stone by the name of Gar.Ama.

However, possibly the first autograph collector and thus the first set of autographs as we recognise them may have appeared in Ancient Rome if Pliny the Elder had accurate gossip about the upper courts of Rome.

The Dictator Sulla, who essentially had total control of Rome, had a son in law named Scaurus who allegedly had a hobby collecting signet rings.

In Ancient Rome, these signet rings would be worn on the ring finger (third finger of the left hand) and were used to seal documents with wax with a design and name.

Typically these rings would be kept in the family, but Scaurus was likely the first person to seek them out to collect himself, and actually started a trend in Rome’s upper crust.

Pompey, not wanting to be outdone by a relative of Sulla, also had a collection, including a ring belonging to King Mithradates, whilst Julius Caeser dedicated six entire cabinets to the Temple of Venus Genetrix, in the truest spirit of showing off.