Category Archives: Archaeology

The May/June issue of Biblical Archaeology Review carries an article by Robert Deutsch about how an artifact bought on the antiquities market helped to solve a 42-year-old excavation puzzle.

Back in 1870 Charles Clermont-Ganneau excavated a tomb on a cliff overlooking the Kidron Valley in Silwan, but he was unable to read the inscription over the tomb. He cut the inscription from the rock and sent it to the British Museum.

In 1953 Nahman Avigad translated the inscription:

This is [the sepulcher of…] -yahu who is over the house. There is no silver and gold here but [his bones] and the bones of his slave-wife with him. Cursed be the man who will open this.

Numerous scholars have identified this Shebna with the person by the same name who was the secretary and head steward of King Hezekiah. This was the view taken by Avigad in 1953.

Inscription from the tomb of Shebna. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins in the British Museum.

The LORD spoke out against the arrogance of Shebna through the prophet Isaiah.

Thus says the Lord GOD of hosts, “Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him: What have you to do here, and whom have you here, that you have cut out here a tomb for yourself, you who cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock? (Isaiah 22:15-16 ESV)

Avigad says that Shebna’s sepulcher “stands in the midst of the necropolis where persons of rank and high distinction were laid to rest” (Israel Exploration Journal 3 (1953): 152)

Deutsch picks up on this discovery and continues with the saga of a bulla [impression of a seal] found at Lachish in the 1960s. One of the small pieces of clay had the name of Shebnayahu on it. The bulla was broken and the archaeologists were uncertain whether one of the words read son of the king or servant of the king.

Deutsch says,

The puzzle remained unsolved for 42 years. Aharoni has long since passed away. Then in 2007, another bulla stamped with the same seal surfaced on the Jerusalem antiquities market. A simple examination leaves no doubt that it is an impression of the same seal as the Lachish bulla. It, too, is broken off at the right edge. But on this bulla, part of an additional letter to the right of ha-melekh, “the king,” has survived: a dalet! The word before ha-melekh ended in a dalet. The word was eved, “servant.” The seal that made this impression belonged to “the servant of the king”!

You may read Deutsch’s full article with photos and drawings online here.

The Israel Antiquities Authority announced the discovery of a fragment of a Hebrew inscription from the period of the Kings of Judah. Here is the complete news release.

In Archaeological Excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is Conducting at the City of David, in the Walls Around Jerusalem National Park:

A Fragment of a Hebrew Inscription from the Period of the Kings of Judah was Found

A fragment of a limestone plaque bearing several letters of ancient Hebrew script was discovered while sifting soil that was excavated in the vicinity of the Gihon Spring, within the precincts of the “Walls around Jerusalem National Park”. The excavation is being carried out on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, under the direction of Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the IAA, and is sponsored by the ‘Ir David Foundation.

The stone fragment dates to the eighth century BCE and this is based on the numerous pottery sherds that were discovered together with it, as well as the shape of the Hebrew letters that are engraved in the inscription.

The plaque is broken on all sides. All that remains of the inscription are two lines of writing: In the upper line the last part of a given name is preserved: …]קיה, or as it is transliterated into English …]kiah. Unfortunately the remains of another letter before the kof cannot be discerned. If the letter preceding the kof was a zayin, we could complete the name to read חזקיה, or Hezekiah in English, and perhaps ascribe historical importance to the inscription. On the other hand, there are other first names that were used in Judah and Jerusalem at that time that could be mentioned here such as Hilkia, Amekiya, etc.

In the second line are the remains of two words. Here too, is a suffix of a word: …]כה, or as it is transliterated into English …]ka. Here we have several possibilities for completing the word such as: בְּרָכָה, or birqa, that is, a greeting expressing best wishes (a possible ending for some sort of commemorative inscription). Another possibility is the word בְּרֵכָה, or brecha, meaning water reservoir. The reconstruction of this word is possible based on the fact that Brechat HaShiloah, or the Shiloah Pool in English, is located nearby, and also based on the fact that a pool is mentioned in the famous Shiloah inscription that was discovered close by.

In any event the fact that we are dealing with a stone plaque indicates that this is a commemorative inscription that may have been meant to celebrate some sort of building project.

All that remains is to wait and hope that in time other fragments of the inscription will be found.

The IAA news release is available here. Below is a photo of the inscription.

Inscription from time of the Kingdom of Judah. Photo: Vladimir Naikhin, courtest IAA.

According to Thiele’s chronology, Hezekiah was king of Judah from 716/15 to 687/86 B.C. The book of Chronicles mentions his important work of bringing water from the Gihon spring to the west side of the city of David.

It was Hezekiah who stopped the upper outlet of the waters of Gihon and directed them to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all that he did. (2 Chronicles 32:30; see 2 Kings 20:20 also).

HT: Joe Lauer