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The Revadim Seal and its Archaic Phoenician Inscription*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Benjamin Sass
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Extract

This seal, one of the earliest with a linear alphabetic inscription, was found in 1959 at Kibbutz Revadim in the Shephelah (Fig. 3). Its find spot lies about three kilometres west of Tel Miqne (Khirbet el-Muqanna'), identified with Ekron of the Philistine Pentapolis. The seal is a scaraboid of hard limestone, most probably mizi hilu, measuring 16 × 13 × 7·5 mm, intended for a ring, as indicated by the two drilled holes that do not meet. The back and sides of the seal are plain. The base carries the owner's name and a scene engraved in a linear, schematic style (Fig. 1, Pl. XLII).

The seal was published in 1961 by R. Giveon, who assigned it to the wellknown class of late Iron Age (mainly 8th—7th century) personal seals from Palestine and neighbouring countries. In an article published a year later, F. M. Cross, on palaeographic grounds, dated the seal to the 12th century. His view won wide acceptance. In this paper, offered with gratitude and admiration to Richard D. Barnett, whose student I had the privilege to be, I wish to re-evaluate the Revadim Seal and its date.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 33 , December 1983 , pp. 169 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1983

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References

1 It was discovered by David Yuval, then a Kibbutz member, in an apple orchard, Israel grid ref. 13245/13150, an area with no other ancient remains. (Information kindly supplied by Natan Eidlin of Revadim, in charge of the local museum, to whom I am also indebted for other data and help concerning the seal.) The seal belongs to the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums, Inv. No. 80–891. Until July 1980 it was in the small Revadim museum; it was then transferred to the Pavilion for Hebrew Script and Inscriptions of the Israel Museum. The kibbutz museum received a replica prepared by the Israel Museum laboratories.

2 Naveh, J., “Khirbat al-Muqanna' Ekron, an Archaeological Survey”, IEJ 8 (1958), pp. 87–100, 165–70Google Scholar. On the recent excavations see Dothan, T. and Gitin, S., “Tel Miqne (Ekron), 1981”, IEJ 32 (1982), pp. 150–3Google Scholar.

3 Stone identified by chemist Ella Altmark of the Department of Antiquities and Museums and geologist Shmuel Meiri.

4 Giveon, R., “Two New Hebrew Seals and their Iconographic Background”, PEQ 93 (1961), pp. 38–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, updated in The Impact of Egypt on Canaan, (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 20), Freiburg (Switzerland) and Göttingen 1978, pp. 110–12Google Scholar.

5 Cross, F. M., “An Archaic Inscribed Seal from the Valley of Aijalon”, BASOR 168 (1962), pp. 12–18Google Scholar.

6 Naveh, J., “Canaanite and Hebrew Inscriptions”, Leshonenu 30 (1966), p. 74Google Scholar (Hebrew); Albright, W. F., The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and their Decipherment (Harvard Theological Studies XXII), Cambridge (Mass.) 1966, p. 11Google Scholar; Kokhavi, M., “An Ostracon of the Period of the Judges from 'Izbet Ṣarṭah”, Tel Aviv 4 (1977), p. 6Google Scholar. etc.

7 On the name, see Cross, op. cit. (above, n. 5), p. 17.

8 Honeyman, A. M., “The Phoenician Inscriptions of the Cyprus Museum”, Iraq VI (1939)Google Scholar, Pl. XIX:3; Meshel, Z., Kuntillet 'Ajrud. A Religious Centre from the Time of the Judaean Monarchy on the Border of Sinai (Israel Museum Catalogue 175) Jerusalem 1978Google Scholar, photos 10, 22; Yadin, Y. et al. , Hazor II, Jerusalem 1959Google Scholar, Pl. CLXIX:2.

9 Cross, F. M. and Milik, J. T., “Inscribed Javelin Heads from the Period of the Judges…”, BASOR 134 (1954)Google Scholar, n. 27; F. M. Cross, “Early Alphabetic Scripts”, in: idem (ed.), Symposia Celebrating the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1900–1975), Cambridge (Mass.) 1979, p. 110.

10 Cross, op. cit. (above, n. 5), p. 15.

11 Cross, F. M. and McCarter, P. K., “Two Archaic Inscriptions on Clay Objects from Byblus”, Rivista di Studi Fenici I (1973), pp. 3–5Google Scholar; Teixidor, J., “Bulletin d'épigraphie sémitique”, Syria 52 (1975), p. 279CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum 144 (Nora); Hestrin, R. and Dayagi-Mendels, M., Inscribed Seals, Jerusalem 1979, Nos. 118, 125Google Scholar. For a slightly different “Proto-Canaanite” bet (with exact parallels on the el-Khaḍr Arrowheads) on an 8th-century seal see ibid., No. 104.

13 Cross and McCarter, op. cit. (above, n. 11), pp. 5–8; Teixidor, J., “An Archaic Inscription from Byblos”, BASOR 225 (1977), pp. 70–1Google Scholar; Cross, F. M., “Newly Found Inscriptions in Old Canaanite and Early Phoenician Scripts”, BASOR 238 (1980)Google Scholar, n. 11 (Byblos B); idem, “The Oldest Phoenician Inscription from the Western Mediterranean”, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 36:4 (1974) (Skehan Festschrift), pp. 490–3 (Nora). The Nora inscription runs probably from right to left, not boustrophedon, and is later than the 11th century. The keyletter for reading boustrophedon is the supposed lamed in the second line, but it could be a remnant of a dextro-sinistral letter, perhaps sade. The dot in the 'ayin is not apparent in a colour slide in my possession. Consequently the date of the Nora Fragment may have to be lowered by a century or more. Only the examination of the original in the Cagliari Museum may allow for a final decision. Martin, M., “A Preliminary Report after Re-examination of the Byblian Inscriptions”, Orientalia 30 (1961)Google Scholar, pl. XI (Byblos spatula).

14 Yadin et al., op. cit. (above, n. 8), pl. CLXIX:6.

15 Hestrin and Dayagi, op. cit. (above, n. 12), Nos. 81, 98, 116, 118, 133 etc., etc.

16 The Proto-Canaanite and Early Phoenician lamed has four basic shapes: 1. The Proto-Sinaitic “oxgoad” form; 2. The “coiled” form known in the 13th–12th century (the time of transition from the “oxgoad” to the “coiled” shape is unknown); 3. The round letter that begins to open up, known from the el-Khaḍr Arrowheads; 4. The Early Phoenician open, mostly angular but sometimes rounded, lamed.

17 To reconcile the Revadim inscription, and especially the lamed, with a 12th century date proved to be virtually impossible. In 1967 Cross dated the seal after the Beth Shemesh ostracon and Sarem sherd, and before the el-Khaḍr arrowheads (“The Origin and Early Evolution of the Alphabet”, Eretz Israel 8, p. 10*). In the same article (n. 64) the Beth Shemesh 'alef is positioned after its Revadim counterpart while the bet (and presumably also the lamed, not compared) are put before the corresponding Revadim letters. In 1973 Cross and McCarter paralleled the Revadim bet and lamed to letters of the Byblos clay cone A, op. cit. (above, n. 11), pp. 4–5, dated to the 11th century (Cross, op. cit., above, n. 9, p. 103). The subsequent lowering of Byblos Cone B (Cross, loc. cit., 1980, above, n. 13) should affect the dating of cone A. In Fig. 2 of Cross's and McCarter's article the Revadim 'alef precedes the Khaḍr letter, but the Revadim lamed comes after the Khaḍr letter. Bet is omitted. Cross correctly compares the Revadim lamed with the form appearing on the Nora fragment, op. cit. (above, n. 13, 1974), p. 492, which he dates to the 11th century, and even that date may be too high (see n. 13). In an 1980 article the Revadim 'alef and bet figure before their Khaḍr counter-parts; the lamed would have been out of context there, and indeed it is omitted (Cross, op. cit., above,.n. 13, p. 16).

18 Giveon, op. cit. (above, n. 4), p. 39.

19 Loc. cit.

20 Cross, op. cit. (above, n. 5), p. 16.

21 No lines are left for the offering stands or standards that Cross saw; ibid., n. 19.

22 Ibid., n. 22.

23 Cross, ibid., n. 16 cites examples with varying degrees of similarity to the style. Some, like the well-known cylinder seal from Beth Shan showing Ramesses II shooting at the ingot, are very remote indeed. Others, mainly Rowe Nos. 632 and 633, are closer, but Rowe's 18th—19th Dynasty date for them mus t be lowered considerably according to well-dated specimens such as Brunton, G., Matmar, London 1948Google Scholar, Pl. LXIII:109 (from an undisturbed tomb, No. 790, in the 22nd–25th Dynasty cemetery); Petrie, W. M. F., Naukratis I, London 1886Google Scholar, Pl. XXXVIII: 161, 162. For parallels to the scene cf. Hornung, E. and Staehelin, E., Skarabäen und andere Siegelamulette aus basler Sammlungen (Ägyptische Denkmäler aus der Schweiz 1), Basle 1976Google Scholar, Nos. 317, 405, 475 and literature cited therein. Being truly Egyptian in style, these pieces, like the reliefs just mentioned, cannot aid in dating our seal.

24 Keel, O., “Der Pharao als ‘Vollkommene Sonne’: ein neuer ägypto-palästinischer Skarabäentyp”, in: Groll, S. I. (ed.), Egyptological Studies (Scripta Hierosolymitana XXVIII), Jerusalem 1982, pp. 406–529Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., p. 445.

26 Cross dates the seal of šm'yhw bn 'zryhw to the 9th century, op. cit. (above, n. 5), n. 12.

27 Of 116 seals listed by Hestrin and Dayagi, op. cit. (above, n. 12) (not including one cylinder seal and 19 impressions), 33 are of limestone; carnelian and agate, which are second and third, lag behind with 16 and 15 pieces respectively. See also n. 3 above. Giveon, op. cit. (above, n. 4), p. 38 stated that the seal was made of steatite, misleading Cross, op. cit. (above, n. 5), p. 15 and n. 13.

28 Tadmor, H., “Philistia under Assyrian Rule”, Biblical Archaeologist XXIX (1966), pp. 86–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ahituv, S., s.v. Philistia, , Encyclopaedia Biblica VI, Jerusalem 1971, cols. 484–500, esp. 495–8Google Scholar (Hebrew).

29 Loc. cit.; Naveh, J., s.v. Ekron, , Encyclopaedia Biblica VI, Jerusalem 1971Google Scholar, col. 339–43 (Hebrew); Aharoni, Y., The Land of the Bible, London 1979, pp. 270–3Google Scholar.

30 Bergman, A. (Biran), “Two Hebrew Seals of the 'Ebed Class”, Journal of Biblical Literature 55 (1936), pp. 224–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Naveh, J., Early History of the Alphabet, Jerusalem 1982, p. 111Google Scholar. Other possible Philistine seals, mostly suspect specimens, are mentioned by Herr, L. G., The Scripts of Ancient Northwest Semitic Seals (Harvard Semitic Monograph 18), Missoula (Montana) 1978, pp. 147–50Google Scholar. Keel, op. cit. (above, n. 24), p. 445 also relates his group of seals to the Philistine realm.

31 Other inscriptions recently removed from the Proto-Canaanite repertoire are the St. Louis Seal (Buchanan, B., Catalogue of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in the Ashmolean Museum I, Cylinder Seals, Oxford 1966, p. 213Google Scholar and No. 1072; Röllig, W., Die Alphabetschrift, in: Hausmann, U. (ed.), Allgemeine Grundlagen der Archäologie, Munich 1969, p. 293Google Scholar, n. 4) and the Lachish Prism (Hestrin, R., Sass, B. and Ophel, A., “The Lachish Prism Inscription — Proto-Canaanite or Egyptian?”, IEJ 32 (1982), pp. 103–6Google Scholar). Nor is the attribution of the Nora fragment beyond doubt (see n. 13 above).