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In October 1975 a hoard of bullae (seal impressions) began trickling onto the Jerusalem antiquities market. Ultimately, the hoard included more than 250 bullae. In 1986 Nahman Avigad, one of Israel’s most prominent and highly respected archaeologists and epigraphers, published these obviously looted bullae.1
Many archaeologists, especially those who are themselves excavating, are vehemently opposed to publishing unprovenanced objects that come from the antiquities market. We don’t know where they come from; they were probably looted. Such publications, they say, are “corrosive”; the trade in antiquities only encourages looting. Scholars (like Avigad) who publish unprovenanced objects are “not blameless” for the resultant looting.
How can we be certain that unprovenanced objects are authentic and not forgeries? The most prominent forgery sleuth in Israel, Professor Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University, has already declared one of the bullae in Avigad’s book to be a forgery.2
Recent research, however, has demonstrated that, as a group, Avigad’s hoard is authentic.
Mitka Ratzaby Golub of the Hebrew University studied the 156 names on the bullae in this hoard and compared them with 46 names found on bullae professionally excavated in Jerusalem.3
Hebrew names often have meaning and contain what scholars call a theophoric element, a reference to a deity. The Israelite God is Yahweh and the theophoric element often contained in Hebrew names is “-yahu” (יהז-) in Judah and “-yo” (יז-) in the northern kingdom of Israel. Another theophoric element is “-el” (אל-). El is the head of the Canaanite pantheon, but it is also a general term for God in Hebrew. “Baal” (בעל), another theophoric element in Hebrew names, is the Canaanite storm god, but it can also refer to Yahweh as “lord” or “master.”
Golub compared the distribution of theophoric elements in the two collections, the one published by Avigad and the other found in professional archaeological excavations in Jerusalem. The results were remarkably similar. In both collections the theophoric element “-yahu” was found in precisely 78 percent of the cases. The theophoric element “-el” was found in 12 percent and 13 percent of the cases, respectively. The theophoric elements “-yah,” “-yo” and “-baal” were absent (with the exception of one bulla) in both collections.
This is, Golub tells us, a “striking similarity in the distribution of theophoric elements, a major and important characteristic in names … This similarity supports the authenticity of the unprovenanced hoard of bullae as a group (not the authenticity of individual bullae within the group) …
“One might argue that the unprovenanced bullae were forged to imitate typical Judaean names. This is unlikely since most of the bullae from Jerusalem were discovered after the hoard of bullae reached the antiquities market … [T]he exact distribution of theophoric elements in names found on bullae from Jerusalem was unknown when the unprovenanced bullae reached the antiquities 015 016 market, and yet a remarkable similarity is found between these two groups.”
So more than a quarter century after they came onto the market, Avigad’s hoard of bullae has been authenticated.
Golub’s study also helps to establish the Jerusalem origin of the unprovenanced hoard. Avigad was not sure whether the hoard came from Jerusalem or elsewhere in Judah. Comparisons of bullae from other Judean sites, however, confirm that the unprovenanced hoard of bullae came from someplace in Jerusalem, probably from an official archive. They date from the time of Jeremiah, in the seventh–early sixth century B.C.—H.S.
In October 1975 a hoard of bullae (seal impressions) began trickling onto the Jerusalem antiquities market. Ultimately, the hoard included more than 250 bullae. In 1986 Nahman Avigad, one of Israel’s most prominent and highly respected archaeologists and epigraphers, published these obviously looted bullae.1
