Endnote 14 – Portraits of Ancient Israelite Kings?

Worthy of mention are a few works of art in miniature from Israel and Judah that show an enthroned figure: an ivory statuette from Tel Rehov (ninth century B.C.E.) in which the head and hands are not preserved; an openwork ivory fragment from Samaria, showing an enthroned figure whose hands are not preserved and an incomplete figure behind the enthroned person, recalling the courtiers behind the king’s throne in the Til Barsip painting and the ‘Ajrud painting; and a painted sherd from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud of an enthroned figure, its arms missing. An Assyrian-style enthroned figure is painted on a jar fragment from Ramat Rahel, dating from the seventh century B.C.E., its hands missing. We cannot tell what all these figures were grasping in their hands, but it would not be a wild guess to say that they were all holding a lotus blossom.