Image Details

A winged sphinx strikingly similar to the one on the seal of Ba‘alis adorns the seal at left; the name at bottom reads simply “Pado’el.” Both sphinxes betray Egyptian influence, but they also display a typical Ammonite flourish: an S-shaped tail. Though not identified here, a Pado’el is known from cuneiform texts to have been an Ammonite king. Because the sphinx was apparently a royal emblem, author Robert Deutsch concludes that this seal belonged to King Pado’el.