Image Details

Gabi Laron/Institute of Archaeology/Hebrew University

Just the right angle of sunlight—and the hawk eyes of Yoav Farhi, an area supervisor on Mazar’s dig—led to the discovery of this .4-inch-wide bulla, a lump of clay that had sealed an ancient document. Inscribed in three lines, the bulla reads, “Belonging to Yehuchal son of Shelemiyahu son of Shovi.” The Book of Jeremiah twice mentions a Yehuchal (Jehucal in English Bibles) son of Shelemiah, indicating that this bulla dates to the late seventh-early sixth century B.C.E. Fittingly, Mazar studied this bulla with the help of a table of ancient letters prepared for an earlier excavation by Yair Shoham—Mazar’s late husband and father of their three sons.