Footnotes

1.

A bulla is a document sealer—made of wet clay, molten lead or some other quick-drying material—on which a seal impression is stamped.

3.

Each one of these l’melech inscriptions also includes the name of one of four towns in Judah: Hebron (22 miles southwest of Jerusalem), Socoh (in the Shephelah, 10 miles southwest of Hebron), Ziph (5 miles southeast of Hebron) and Mmsát (unidentified).

4.

A beq’a is half a shekel.

Endnotes

1.

David Ussishkin, “Excavations at Lachish, Tel Aviv 5 (1978), pp. 83–84, fig. 26, pl. 27.

2.

For a more detailed description of the Babylonian invasion of southern Palestine, see Lawrence E. Stager, “The Fury of Babylon: Ashkelon and the Archaeology of Destruction,” BAR 22:01.

3.

For more information on Shiloh, see the two-part interview in BAR: Hershel Shanks, “Yigal Shiloh—Last Thoughts,” BAR 14:02 and BAR Interview: Yigal Shiloh,” BAR 14:03.

4.

Author Jane M. Cahill co-supervised the excavations in Area G and is now responsible for publishing the results of those excavations.—Ed.

5.

The variety of names appearing on these bullae suggests a public archive. See Yair Shoham, “A Group of Hebrew Bullae from Yigal Shiloh’s Excavations in the City of David,” in Ancient Jerusalem Revealed, ed. Hillel Geva (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1994), p. 62. See also Hershel Shanks, “The City of David After Five Years of Digging,” BAR 11:06.

6.

O. Zimhoni, “Two Ceramic Assemblages from Lachish,” Tel Aviv 17 (1990), p. 45, fig. 33:4.

7.

A second decanter bearing a rosette-impressed handle was recently identified during the restoration of pottery from excavations at the Jerusalem suburb of Motzah, directed by Alon DeGroot on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority. I thank Alon DeGroot for allowing me to mention the Motzah decanter.

8.

See H. Darrell Lance, “Stamps, Royal Jar Handle,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary 6 (New York: Doubleday, 1992), pp. 184–185.

9.

H. Mommsen, I. Perlman and J. Yellin, “The Provenience of the lmlk Jars,” Israel Exploration Journal 34 (1984), p. 112.

10.

Ussishkin, “The Destruction of Lachish by Sennacherib and the Dating of the Royal Judean Storage Jars,” Tel Aviv 4 (1977), pp. 28–57.

11.

Jane M. Cahill, “Rosette Stamp Seal Impressions from Ancient Judah,” Israel Exploration Journal 45 (1995), pp. 247–250.

12.

Gabriel Barkay, “A Group of Iron Age Scale Weights,” Israel Exploration Journal 28 (1978), p. 210, fig. 1:3, pp. 212–213, and pls. 33:E-G.

13.

Raz Kletter, “The Inscribed Weights of the Kingdom of Judah,” Tel Aviv 18 (1991), pp. 121–163.

14.

R.A.S. Macalister, The Excavations of Gezer II (London: Murray, 1912), p. 285, fig. 433; A. Ben-David, “A Rare Inscribed nzf Weight,” Israel Exploration Journal 23 (1973), pp. 176–177.

15.

Yigael Yadin, “Ancient Judean Weights and the Date of the Samaria Ostraca,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 8 (1961), pp. 9–25, esp. p. 14.

16.

James B. Pritchard, The Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1954), p. 36, fig. 121.

17.

Barkay, “Scale Weights,” p. 213.

18.

Nahman Avigad, “The King’s Daughter and the Lyre,” Israel Exploration Journal 28 (1978), pp. 146–151.

19.

Although a recent publication has noted the many unique attributes of this seal, its authenticity has not been seriously challenged. See Benjamin Sass, “The Pre-exilic Hebrew Seals: Iconism and Uniconism,” in Studies in the Iconography of Northwest Semitic Inscribed Seals, ed. Sass and Christoph Uehlinger (Göttingen: Vandenhoech and Ruprecht, 1993), p. 242.

20.

Ekrem Akurgal, The Art of the Hittites (London: Thames & Hudson, 1962), p. 61.

21.

Akurgal, Hittites, p. 138, pl. 129.

22.

Akurgal, Hittites, p. 138, pl. 130.

23.

Akurgal, Hittites, pls. 106–107.

24.

Richard D. Barnett, Assyrian Palace Reliefs and Their Influence on the Sculptures of Babylonia and Persia (London: Batchworth Press Ltd., 1960), pls. 25–29; Pierre Amiet, Art of the Ancient Near East, trans. John Shepley and Claude Choquet (New York: Abrams, 1980), p. 283, pls. 119, 121, p. 406, pl. 603.

25.

For Shalmaneser III, see Amiet, Art, p. 293, pl. 122. For Shamshi-Adad V, Tiglath-Pileser III and Esarhaddon, see Pritchard, Ancient Near East, pp. 153–154, 300, pls. 442, 445, 447. For Ashurbanipal, see Barnett, Assyrian Palace Reliefs, pp. 29–30, pls. 61, 63, 65, 83–84, 105; Amiet, Art, pp. 103, 413–415, 418, pls. 126, 129, 618, 623, 634.

26.

Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish by Sennacherib (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Univ., Institute of Archaeology, 1982), p. 115.

27.

Ussishkin, Conquest of Lachish, p. 115, fig. 65.

28.

Ussishkin, Conquest of Lachish, p. 89, fig. 115.

29.

Ussishkin, Conquest of Lachish, p. 115.

30.

Ussishkin, Conquest of Lachish, p. 115.

31.

For Ashurnasirpal II, see Amiet, Art, p. 283, pl. 119, p. 406, pl. 603; and Barnett, Assyrian Palace Reliefs, pp. 27–28, pl. 26–27. For Sargon II, see Barnett, Assyrian Palace Reliefs, p. 28, pl. 43. For Sennacherib, see Ussishkin, Conquest of Lachish, pp. 88–89, fig. 71, pp. 90–91, fig. 72. For Ashurbanipal, see Barnett, Assyrian Palace Reliefs, p. 29, pl. 64, p. 30, pl. 99.

32.

For the breastplate, quiver and shield; see Barnett, Assyrian Palace Reliefs, p. 29, pls. 84, 82, 76.

33.

For Ashurnasirpal II’s bow holder, see Barnett, Assyrian Palace Reliefs, p. 28, pl. 31. For Tiglath-Pileser III’s officers, see Barnett and Margarete Falkner, The Sculptures of Assur-nasir-apli II (883–859 B.C.), Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 B.C.), Esarhaddon (681–669 B.C.) from the Central and South-West Palaces at Nimrud (London: British Museum, 1962), p. 55, pl. 6, p. 72, pl. 23. For Sennacherib’s high-ranking officer, see Ussishkin, Conquest of Lachish, pp. 88–89, 115, fig. 71.

34.

Barnett, Assyrian Palace Reliefs, p. 121.

35.

Tallay Ornan, “The Dayan Collection,” Israel Museum Journal 2 (1983), pp. 14–16, 18 n. 63. Ornan notes that a similar rosette diadem is seen on a female bust now in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. A. Spaer of Jerusalem. Because the Spaer bust appears to have been purchased from the same source as the bust in the Dayan Collection, the two busts may originally have formed a pair and should perhaps be identified as an Ammonite king and queen.

36.

Moawiyah M. Ibrahim, “Two Ammonite Statuettes from Khirbet el-Hajjar,” Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 16 (1971), pp. 91–97.

37.

Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 224–226, 237.

38.

William F. Albright, “Editorial Note,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 80 (1940), p. 21 n. 51.

39.

S.H. Hooke, Middle Eastern Mythology (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1963), p. 42.