A Seal Impression of ‘ShemaꜤ Servant of Jeroboam’

Abstract

The article deals with a small bulla of unknown provenance that was purchased some forty years ago in the Bedouin market of Beʾer Sheva. The bulla was stamped with a seal depicting a roaring lion, above which the letters (LSM[Ꜥ]) were straightforwardly identified; it closely resembles the famous ‘ShemaꜤ servant of Jeroboam’ seal from Megiddo. Significantly, this unique bulla represents, to date, the first example of an ancient bulla stamped with a scaled-down authentic seal of a known master-seal of the Iron Age in Israel. The authenticity of the bulla was confirmed by meticulous laboratory tests, verifying both that it is genuine and that its date coincides with that of the ShemaꜤ seal from Megiddo.

Keywords:

• Administration
• Bulla
• ShemaꜤ servant of Jeroboam II
• Megiddo
• Patina
• Roaring lion
• Textile

Acknowledgements

The authors are most grateful to Prof. Yigal and Dalia Ronen for putting the bulla at their disposal for research and publication. The Ronen family kindly agreed to have the bulla officially registered with the Israel Antiquities Authority and to donate it as a gift to the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

The various scientific tests were carried out at the Microarcheology Laboratory and the characterisation laboratories of the Ilsa Katz Institute of Nanosciences, both at Ben- Gurion University of the Negev, as well as the laboratories of the Geological Survey of Israel, Jerusalem. Thanks are extended to Roxana Golan for assisting with the SEM tests and to Dr. Mariela Faben and Dr. Sharon Hazan for their assistance with the Raman spectroscopy tests.

Disclosure statement

The authors report that there are no competing interests to declare.

Notes

1 Avigad 1992; Avigad and Sass 1997: 163, No. 391; Lemaire 1979; 1990; Sass 1993: 214, 221–222; Ornan et al. 2012: 6*–8*. Note that most of the seals referred to here are unprovenanced or unstratified. For an updated list of provenanced items, see Koch 2018.

2 The isotopic composition of oxygen in a carbonate patina is a function of the precipitation temperature and its isotopic composition in the water from which the patina has settled under terrestrial conditions. The isotopic composition of carbon (δ13C) is a function of the soil, its carbon dioxide and δ13C value of bedrock.

3 In this context we may note the scaraboid seal, made of bone, and its imprint on a bulla, both unprovenanced (Avigad and Sass 1997: Nos. 330, 616). Avigad and Sass (1997: 229) remarked, with regard to No. 616, that this is the only example of a seal and its impression on a bulla in the entire corpus of West Semitic seals. However, Sass suspects the bulla, or the seal and the bulla, to be modern forgeries (B. Sass, email to E.D. Oren on March 28, 2015).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shmuel Aḥituv

Shmuel Aḥituv: Department of Bible Studies, Archaeology and the Ancient Near East, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beʾer Sheva

Avner Ayalon

Avner Ayalon: The Geological Survey of Israel, Jerusalem; email: [email protected]

Mira Bar-Matthews

Mira Bar-Matthews: The Geological Survey of Israel, Jerusalem;email: [email protected]

Yuval Goren

Yuval Goren: Department of Bible Studies, Archaeology and the Ancient Near East, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beʾer Sheva; email: [email protected]

Michael Magen

Michael Magen: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; email: [email protected]

Eliezer D. Oren

Eliezer D. Oren: Department of Bible Studies, Archaeology and the Ancient Near East, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beʾer Sheva; email: [email protected]

Orit Shamir

Orit Shamir: Israel Antiquities Authority; email: [email protected]