Image Details

PHOTO BY OURIA TADMOR, © EILAT MAZAR

HEZEKIAH’S SIGNATURE. In her 2009 excavations at the Ophel near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, archaeologist Eilat Mazar discovered a bulla of King Hezekiah. It was created by pressing the king’s personal seal into a soft piece of clay to seal a rolled papyrus document sometime in the eighth or seventh century B.C.E. An imprint of the papyrus is even visible on the bulla’s back. Although its diameter is less than half an inch, the royal signature packs a lot of information. It contains a winged sun disk and ankh—two symbols with Egyptian influence—and reads, “(belonging) to Hezekiah (son of) Ahaz king of Judah.”