The specimens of these two classes were used as stamps, and they are generally found either attached to a finger by a flaxen thread, or threaded to a string of beads, in which case they were worn around the neck as pendants.[100] Occasionally they have been found without any attachment, but simply held by the owner in his or her left hand. [Sidenote: Their history.] These two classes of seal were in use in Egypt for a limited period only. They appear for the first time in graves belonging to the end of the Sixth Dynasty,[101] and during the period intervening between that time and the beginning of the Middle Kingdom they were the commonest form of seal in use.[102] Before the end of the Eleventh Dynasty they seem to have entirely disappeared. [Illustration: Fig. 39.] [Illustration: Fig. 40.] [Sidenote: The subjects engraved on (1) button-shaped seals.] The patterns[103] that we find engraved upon button-shaped seals are distinctive, and they are certainly not Upper Egyptian in their origin. Hieroglyphs very rarely occur (_cf._ fig. 41), and when they do, they are clearly imitations of Egyptian characters made apparently by foreigners. The motives for some of the designs are clear; thus a common type is that which has already been noticed as occurring on a class of early cylinder-seal—the linked forequarters of gazelles and other animals symmetrically arranged (_cf._ figs. 39, 40); sometimes also we find a curious running figure of a man (fig. 42, and _cf._ fig. 35), and occasionally a tortoise, a lizard (_cf._ fig. 43), or a spider (_cf._ fig. 44). Conventional and geometrical patterns are also found, the meander[104] and the radiated disc being perhaps the most frequent. See also figs. 45-6. [Illustration: Figs. 41, 42 and 43.] [Sidenote: (2) Hemi-cylinders.] The patterns occurring on the hemi-cylinder seals are nearly all geometrical, as shown in figs. 47-57, but the human figure is sometimes represented, as in fig. 34. [Illustration: Figs. 44, 45 and 46.] [Illustration: Figs. 47, 48 and 49.] [Illustration: Figs. 50 and 51.] [Sidenote: Historical importance of button-shaped seals.]