seal
Seal may refer to any of the following:
Common uses
* Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly:
** Earless seal, also called "true seal"
** Fur seal
** Eared seal
* Seal ( ...
(2.1 × 1.8 cm) excavated by
Eilat Mazar
Eilat Mazar (; 10 September 195625 May 2021) was an Israeli archaeologist. She specialized in Jerusalem and Phoenician archaeology. She was also a key person in Biblical archaeology noted for her discovery of the Large Stone Structure, which ...
in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
, January 2008. It was found in a stratified layer estimated at 2,500 years old, just outside the Old City walls near the
Dung Gate
The Dung Gate (), also known as Bab al-Maghariba (), Mughrabi Gate, Moroccan Gate or Silwan Gate, is one of the Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem. It was built as a small postern gate in the 16th century by the Ottomans, first widened for vehic ...
.
Design
The stone depicts two bearded priests standing on either side of an incense altar with their hands raised forward in a position of worship. A crescent moon, symbol of the chief Babylonian god Sin, appears on the top of the altar. It has been described as a common and popular Babylonian cultic scene.The Jerusalem Post: First Temple seal found in Jerusalem /ref>
At the bottom are four
Paleo-Hebrew
The Paleo-Hebrew script (), also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, including pre-Biblical and Biblical Hebrew, from southern Canaan, also known as the biblical kingdoms o ...
Mazar initially read the inscription as "Temech" (תמח ''tmḥ''), and associated it with a family named "Tamah" in
Nehemiah
Nehemiah (; ''Nəḥemyā'', "Yahweh, Yah comforts") is the central figure of the Book of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuilding Jerusalem during the Second Temple period as the governor of Yehud Medinata, Persian Judea under Artaxer ...
7:55.
According to the Book of Nehemiah, the Temech family were servants of the
First Temple
Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (), was a biblical Temple in Jerusalem believed to have existed between the 10th and 6th centuries BCE. Its description is largely based on narratives in the Hebrew Bible, in which it was commis ...
and were sent into exile to
Babylon
Babylon ( ) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-s ...
following its destruction by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The family was among those who later returned to Jerusalem.
Other scholars (initially Peter van der Veen, followed by others) read the seal's letters in reverse order and suggested a reading of Shelomith (שלמת ''šlmt''), a name found in 1Chronicles 3:19 and
Ezra
Ezra ( fl. fifth or fourth century BCE) is the main character of the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible, he was an important Jewish scribe (''sofer'') and priest (''kohen'') in the early Second Temple period. In the Greek Septuagint, t ...
8:10 dating to the same approximate time.
On January 30, 2008, the
Biblical Archaeology Society
The Biblical Archaeology Society was established in 1974 by American lawyer Hershel Shanks, as a non-sectarian organisation that supports and promotes biblical archaeology. Its current publications include the ''Biblical Archaeology Review'', wh ...
published analyses by scholars with epigraphy expertise, Robert Deutsch and
Anson Rainey
Anson Frank Rainey (January 11, 1930 – February 19, 2011) was professor emeritus of ancient Near Eastern cultures and Semitic linguistics at Tel Aviv University. He is known in particular for contributions to the study of the Amarna tabl ...
, and Mazar agreed to revise her reading. Of this decision Mazar has written, "Despite the fact that seals are meant to be pressed into clay, some seals are nevertheless not written in mirror image-perhaps because they were engraved by a local craftsman who was not especially skilled. Another difficulty is the unclear 'tail' of the ''
lamed
Lamedh or lamed is the twelfth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Hebrew ''lāmeḏ'' , Aramaic ''lāmaḏ'' 𐡋, Syriac ''lāmaḏ'' ܠ, Arabic ''lām'' , and Phoenician ''lāmd'' 𐤋. Its sound value is . It is also related to the Anc ...
'' haracter Nevertheless, I now agree that the name Shelomit is the preferable reading."
Gender
Ryan Byrne published an online article presuming the name to be feminine. Christopher Heard challenged this with a comparison of all examples named in the
Biblical archaeology
Biblical archaeology is an academic school and a subset of Biblical studies and Levantine archaeology. Biblical archaeology studies archaeological sites from the Ancient Near East and especially the Holy Land (also known as Land of Israel and ...