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Showing posts with the label Hebrew seals and bullae

Infographic: Seal Artifacts Identifying Biblical Persons

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The following infographic visualizes some of my research on Hebrew seals and Bullae of the Iron Age royal court. Basically, I used formal verification criteria modeled in Lawrence J. Mykytiuk's doctoral thesis,  Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions and determined that of the thousands of seals and seal impressions discovered in the archeological record which ones we can say with confidence identify individuals named in the Hebrew Bible. Benjamin Stanhope, "Iconography on Hebrew Seals and Bullae Identifying Biblical Persons and the Apparent Paradox of Egyptian Solar Symbols" in Meir and Edith Lubetski (eds.), Epigraphy, Iconography, and the Bible . Hebrew Bible Monographs 98 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2022), 175-206. Click to enlarge

Archeology: Why do the seals of biblical kings depict Egyptian gods?

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I've transformed my recent Sheffield-Phoenix paper into an animated presentation. The video showcases some of my digital art and explores several questions: 1) Of the thousands of Hebrew seals in biblical archeology that have surfaced, which ones can we reliably say belonged to biblical characters? 2) Why do some of these seals plainly depict Egyptian gods? 3) How did Egyptian solar theology influence Yahwism of the biblical classical period.   Ahora se han agregado subtítulos en español (gracias a Matías)!  Script follows: Ancient Israel and Egypt were primarily papyrus manuscript cultures. Since papyrus decays easily, extremely few of these documents survive from history. However, what does survive are thousands of seals, typically carved of semi-precious stone. A soft lump of clay called a bulla would be fixed onto a closed document or other container, often molded around binding cords. A seal would then be used to stamp a characteristic, presumably unimitatable marking into the

Illustrations of Hebrew Seals and Bullae Identifying Biblical Persons

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My recent M.A. thesis contained my digital illustrations of ancient seals identifying biblical persons. Since images of a few of these artifacts can be difficult to access, and some of my illustrations bring out elements and engraving reconstructions elsewhere unpublished, this blog post seeks to make a number of them more available to researchers. Publication of many of these images will be forthcoming in a volume by Sheffield Phoenix. However, at present if you wish to use them, you can simply cite my online thesis : Benjamin Stanhope, “First Temple Hebrew Seals and Bullae Identifying Biblical Persons: A Study of their Iconographic and Historical Significance” M.A. Thesis, Hamburg University, 2019. The figure notations in this post correspond to the thesis. Examples of ancient seal impressing methods Fig 1. Upper register: Example of a Kassite cylinder seal rolled out on clay. Lower register: A perforated stamp seal set in the axle of a ring