Zev Radovan/Collection Israel Museum

Days of wine and rosettes. A ten-petalled rosette adorns a lyre on this brown jasper seal, identified by its inscription as the property of “Ma’adanah the king’s daughter.” Though the seal’s provenance is uncertain, archaeologist Nahman Avigad, who published it, believed it to be from seventh-century B.C.E. Jerusalem. Rosettes did not appear on Judahite objects before that time. Author Cahill argues that Judah adopted rosettes as royal symbols from the Assyrians, who conquered the northern kingdom of Israel in 721 B.C.E., only after the resurgence of Judah’s independence late in the seventh century B.C.E.