(CP) Archaeologists in Israel uncovered a stone seal they imagine to be around 2,700 years old from the First Temple period, a find that strengthens the biblical heritage of Jerusalem.
The seal, discovered on the City of David National Park in Jerusalem, comprises a winged figure with one arm raised forward with an open palm, the Israeli Antiquities Authority announced.
The seal was discovered during excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the City of David Foundation near the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount within the Davidson Archaeological Garden.
On either side of the figure is an inscription in paleo-Hebrew script that reads “LeYehoʼezer ben Hoshʼayahu.”
The figure appears to be designed within the Neo-Assyrian Empire style, which makes the excavation team imagine shows the influence of the empire within the region dating way back to the ninth century B.C.
Yuval Baruch and Navot Rom, excavation directors for the Israel Antiquities Authority, described the seal of black stone as “some of the beautiful ever discovered in excavations in ancient Jerusalem,” adding that the stone is “executed at the best artistic level.”
“The figure of a winged man in a definite Neo-Assyrian style is exclusive and really rare within the glyphic varieties of the late First Temple period,” Baruch said. “The influence of the Assyrian Empire, which had conquered all the region, is clearly evident here.”
According to Baruch, the finding contradicts assumptions that only elite members of society were literate. The piece seems to suggest that more people knew easy methods to read and write at a basic level, a minimum of for commerce needs.
Further descriptions of the finding state, “The name Yehoʼezer is familiar to us from the Bible (Chron. I 12:7) in its abbreviated form — Yoʼezer, considered one of King David’s fighters,” while also stating that “within the book of Jeremiah (43:2), describing the events of this very period, an individual is mentioned with a parallel name, ʼAzariah ben Hoshʼaya.”
“The two parts of his first name are written in reverse order to the seal owner’s name, and his second name is similar, appearing in its abbreviated form. This writing form within the text suits the name on the newly discovered seal and it’s thus appropriate for this time period.”
Ze’ev Orenstein, director of International Affairs for the City of David Foundation, told Fox News that the seal “joins the list of countless archeological discoveries within the City of David — the historic site of Biblical Jerusalem — affirming Jerusalem’s Biblical heritage.”
“It similarly serves as one more affirmation of the thousands-of-year-old bond rooting the Jewish people in Jerusalem — not simply as a matter of religion, but as a matter of fact,” he said.
Earlier this month, the Israel Antiquities Authority shared the main points of one other excavation in Jerusalem, this time of the drainage channel from the Second Temple Period. The finding provided further insight into the town before the temple’s destruction in 70 A.D.
“Into the channel’s mouth were swept the detritus of the life above Jerusalem’s fundamental street; where they remained preserved between the partitions just as they were in the mean time of the town’s destruction,” Excavation Director Ayala Zilberstein stated.
“Small finds tell us a giant story, from Jerusalem’s heyday of prosperity and splendor when its streets bustled with life, until the town’s ebbing moments in the course of the rise up against the Romans, and its total abandonment following the Temple and city’s destruction.”
“Since most of those municipal channels were maintained and cleared recurrently, to search out layers of silt within the fundamental drainage channel filling it to almost half its height, indicates a gradual neglect of city maintenance,” Zilberstein added. “And indeed, this very neglect and abandonment that we are actually witness to here corresponds to the story of the means of Jerusalem’s destruction.”
