Memory Seals

Memory Seals are Precursor relics with the ability to contain the recorded memories of their users, whether Isu or human.
==History==
===Isu Era===
While the Isu Capitoline Triad of Minerva, Jupiter, and Juno worked within the Grand Temple to avert the Great Catastrophe,Assassin's Creed III – Modern day Minerva and Jupiter recorded messages on several seals that were intended for Desmond Miles to view thousands of years later. However, after Juno was imprisoned within the Temple, she found the seals and threw them into the chasm below the compound, believing them to be "filled with lies".
===Ptolemaic dynasty===
In 38 BCE, the Medjay Bayek investigated rumors of ghosts and strange happenings in the Desheret Desert. While exploring the sands, he entered the buried Qeneb.too Kah'Aiye vault, where he saw a depiction of a Memory Seal engraved into one of the rock pillars holding up the vault's ceiling. After inserting the Seth-Anat stone in the engraving's empty center space, the stone conjured a host of illusory undead soldiers. Fleeing the temple, Bayek collapsed unconscious just outside its entry. When he awoke sometime later and returned to the temple, he found that the Memory Seal symbol had mysteriously disappeared.Assassin's Creed: Origins – Lights Among the Dunes
===Middle Ages===
====Abbasid Caliphate====
In the 9th century CE, the Order of the Ancients found a number of Memory Seals while excavating Isu ruins in the desert surrounding Baghdad and sought to unravel their secrets. To this end, they built a device known as the Alruh, located underneath the House of Wisdom, which the Ancient Fazil Fahim al-Kemsa used to experiment on various test subjects by exposing them to the seals' contents, driving them insane in the process.Assassin's Creed: Mirage – The Great Symposium
In 861, caliph Al-Mutawakkil came into possession of a Memory Seal, which he kept within a locked chest. The Ancients forbade him from laying his eyes on the chest's contents and, on 11 December, had a meeting with the caliph at his Winter Palace in Anbar to see the artifact for themselves. After confirming that the artifact was a seal, the Ancients ordered Al-Mutawakkil to keep it safe and left.Assassin's Creed: Mirage – The Master Thief of Anbar
However, during the caliph's meeting with the Order members, the thief Basim Ibn Ishaq broke into the palace, intending to steal the chest's contents for the Hidden Ones. Upon picking up the seal, it projected a hologram of an unknown male striking a prisoner, which alerted Al-Mutawakkil to Basim's presence. After killing the caliph in self-defense, Basim fled the palace with the seal in his pocket and returned to his dwelling. The next morning, he was visited by the Hidden One Roshan, who took the seal and brought it, along with Basim, to Alamut.
After Basim became a Hidden One, he was tasked with eliminating the Order's presence in Baghdad. During his investigation, Basim learned about Fazil's experiments with the Alruh and the Memory Seals and infiltrated the House of Wisdom to assassinate the Ancient. Posing as a test subject, Basim was able to get close enough to his target to stab him with his Hidden Blade while Fazil attempted to experiment on him with the Alruh.
Sometime later, when Basim entered the Isu temple underneath Alamut, he found dozens of Memory Seals locked away. One of them contained a recorded memory of Loki, who had been imprisoned inside the temple, and it helped Basim, who was the Isu's reborn form, to unlock the dormant memories of his past life.
====Usage by Altaïr====
In the early 13th century, the Levantine Assassins' Mentor Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad was exiled from Masyaf and took refuge in Alamut, where his Apple of Eden guided him to the Isu temple underneath the fortress. Altaïr subsequently claimed six of the Memory Seals he found there, using them to record important events in his life for potential Assassins to view centuries later. Following his return to Masyaf, Altaïr began construction on a secret library and used five of his seals as the keys.
In order, the events that Altaïr chose to record involved a Crusader skirmish in 1189,Assassin's Creed: Revelations – The Mentor's Keeper the revolt shortly after Al Mualim's death in 1191,Assassin's Creed: Revelations – The Mentor's Wake Maria Thorpe's death and Altaïr's exile in 1228,Assassin's Creed: Revelations – A New Regime Altaïr's return to Masyaf in 1247,Assassin's Creed: Revelations – The Mentor's Return Niccolò and Maffeo Polo's departure in 1257 during the Fall of Masyaf,Assassin's Creed: Revelations – Passing the Torch and Altaïr's death shortly thereafter.Assassin's Creed: Revelations – Lost Legacy
Before his death, Altaïr passed the five seals to his library to Niccolò, trusting him to hide them.Assassin's Creed: Revelations – A Journal of Some Kind Upon arriving in Constantinople, Niccolò hid the seals in several secret locations around the city and left behind clues to their whereabouts in his book The Secret Crusade. Respectively, the five seals were placed within Topkapı Palace, the Yerebatan Cistern,Assassin's Creed: Revelations – The Yerebatan Cistern Galata Tower,Assassin's Creed: Revelations – Galata Tower the Forum of the Ox,Assassin's Creed: Revelations – The Forum of the Ox and the Maiden's Tower.Assassin's Creed: Revelations – The Maiden's Tower Meanwhile, the sixth and final seal remained with Altaïr inside his library, where he recorded his final moments.
===Renaissance===
In 1509, the Byzantine Templars recovered the Memory Seal beneath Topkapı Palace after an earthquake struck Constantinople, allowing them to claim the artifact. They subsequently set out to retrieve the remaining four seals and uncover the secrets of Altaïr's library.Assassin's Creed: Revelations – The Wounded Eagle
In 1511, two Memory Seals in Alexandria were located by Mamluk Sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri's soldiers during their excavation of the Library of Alexandria. These seals, kept within a chest dated to 331 BCE, were recovered by both the Egyptian Assassins and their Ottoman brethren shortly afterwards. The seals were later taken to the local Assassins' headquarters, where they were studied by an woman initiate. As she worked to "unlock the mysteries" of the seals, the Templars led an attack on the headquarters, though they were thwarted again by the Ottoman Assassins.Assassin's Creed: Revelations – Mediterranean Defense: "Alexandria"
That same year, the Italian Assassins' Mentor Ezio Auditore journeyed to Constantinople after learning about Altaïr's library and the five Memory Seals required to access it. Using information from The Secret Crusade, Ezio was able to find and recover the seals kept within the Yerebatan Cistern, Galata Tower, the Forum of the Ox, and the Maiden's Tower. Later, he journeyed to Cappadocia where he reclaimed the fifth seal from a dying Manuel Palaiologos,Assassin's Creed: Revelations – Last of the Palaiologi and found the final one upon entering Altaïr's library.Assassin's Creed: Revelations – A Homecoming Following his return to Constantinople, Ezio entrusted all six seals to the Ottoman Assassins, who hid them within the Yerebatan Cistern.
===Modern times===
By the 21st century, Abstergo Industries had found a number of Memory Seals, though very few of them contained recorded memories, none of which belonged to the Isu. Nonetheless, research of the artifacts helped the company in their early breakthroughs in genetic memory technology, which ultimately led to the development of the Animus.Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag – Noob's personal files – Abstergo Industries: "Crypto-History: Artifacts"
In 2013, an embedded file in the Abstergo Entertainment mainframe focused on several different Isu technologies, including Memory Seals. The file mentioned that fewer than 40 seals had ever been found or accounted for, leading Abstergo to speculate that the artifacts were not widely used by the Isu and were instead reserved for the wealthiest and most powerful members of their society. The file also revealed that Abstergo knew of the six Memory Seals used by Altaïr and believed they could still be functional, but had been unable to locate them.
==Behind the scenes==
While first introduced in the 2011 game Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Memory Seals were not identified by name until Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013), which features a document discussing Abstergo's research of various Precursor relics. As such, it is unknown if "Memory Seals" is the actual name of the artifacts or just the one given to them by Abstergo.
The Memory Seals featured in the 2023 game Assassin's Creed: Mirage differ in design from the ones seen in Revelations, as they lack the golden ring near the center. They also appear to function differently, displaying a holographic recording of the memory stored on them, though it is unknown if the seals from Revelations also have this ability.
==Gallery==
Vault4.png|Minerva's projection in the Vatican Vault of a glowing Memory Seal
ACMir Memory Seal.png|The Memory Seal found by Basim
ACMirage The Master Thief of Anbar 45.png|Basim staring at an inert Memory Seal
ACMirage The Master Thief of Anbar 38.png|A Memory Seal displaying a recorded memory
ACMir In Pursuit of Truth 33.png|Memory Seals stored in the Alamut Temple
ACR Ezio reliving memory.png|Ezio reliving a memory stored in one of the Memory Seals
ACR Galata Keys.png|Memory Seals in the Galata headquarters
ACBM Voynich page.jpg|A Memory Seal on an extract of the Voynich manuscript
AC4 Memory Seal.png|Abstergo Industries comparing a Memory Seal to the 
==Appearances==
*Assassin's Creed: The Secret Crusade 
*Assassin's Creed: Revelations
*Assassin's Creed: Revelations novel
*Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag 
*Assassin's Creed: Brahman 
*Assassin's Creed: Origins 
*Assassin's Creed: Where's the Assassin? 
*Assassin's Creed: Mirage
==References==
pt-br:Selos de Memória
zh:记忆封印
Category:Isu technology
Category:Precursor relics