2,500-Year-Old Woman’s Seal Unearthed in Jerusalem
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
A First Temple-era stamp that is distinctive both for its age and the fact that it belonged to a woman, was recently discovered in excavations in Jerusalem.
The 2,500-year-old personal seal, made of semi-precious stone and bearing the words in Hebrew “To Elihana bat Gael,” was uncovered at the City of David, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced this week.
The stamp was found near one belonging to a man named “Sa‘aryahu ben Shabenyahu” inside a structure, believed to be an ancient administrative center, built of cut stone.
In a statement, archaeologists Doron Ben-Ami, Yana Tchekhanovets and Salome Cohen, said: “Personal seals, such as those of Elihana and Sa‘aryahu, were used for signing documents, and were frequently inlaid as part of a ring that was worn by the owner. In antiquity they designated the identity, genealogy and status of the owner of the seal.”
Hagai Misgav, an archaeology professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said in a statement: “Seals that belonged to women represent just a very small proportion of all the seals that have been discovered to date. This is because of the generally inferior economic status of women, apart from extraordinary instances such as this. Indeed, the name Elihana does not appear in the Bible, and there is no other information regarding the identity of the woman, but the fact that she possessed a seal demonstrates her high social status.”
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
