How Many?

018

How many Hebrew personal seals from Biblical times have been published?

064

Answer: More than 500

Despite the fact that most ancient Hebrew seals turn up on the antiquities market or in private collections, a remarkable number (more than 500) have been fully published and translated.¹ The small, ovoid limestone seals usually lack ornamentation and typically include only the owner’s name in an upper register and his (or her) father’s name in a lower register. Almost all date to the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.E., when the kingdom of Judah reached its political and demographic zenith, having absorbed a great deal of the population of the northern kingdom of Israel that was not carried off into exile by the Assyrians in 722 B.C.E.

Although the seals generally do not mention the owner’s rank or title, many appear to belong to Judahite officials, most of whom have Hebrew names well known from the Bible, such as Hosea, Hannah and Menahem. Such a large corpus of seals used by officials who were largely based outside of the Judahite capital in Jerusalem attests to the growing need for local, regional and royal administration over the expanding kingdom. The scope of the kingdom’s administrative bureaucracy is even more evident when we consider that of the 700 known seal impressions (i.e., those seals that have been pressed into clay bullae or onto jar handles), only two have been matched with a published seal. This means the total combined corpus of unique seals and seal impressions of Judahite officials could number well over 1,200.