Image Details

Beneath a crescent moon, an Assyrian king holds up an offering bowl to the radiant figure of the god Assur, who raises both of his hands as a sign of blessing. The image is from an Assyrian stamp seal (at left in the photo), shown here beside a modern impression made by pressing the seal into wet clay.

Archaeologists discovered the seal in a residential section of Dor, an Israelite and Phoenician coastal city located about 12 miles south of modern Haifa. Destroyed by the Assyrians in 733 B.C.E., Dor, like Megiddo, was soon rebuilt. Thereafter, it became the administrative center of an Assyrian province that included the Carmel and Sharon coasts.