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LMLK Seals from Arad |
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LMLK Home Biblical Accounts NonBiblical Accounts Theories HBRN MMST SUKE ZYF Generic x (cannot classify) 2-Top 2-Divided 2-Undivided 4-Cursory 4-Lapidarist Jars Personal Seals Incisions Paleography Typologies Corpus Stratigraphy Geography Displays Publications Credits Updates 
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 Note: Large dot indicates approximate location of Arad. Here is an aerial view of the site from the west (photo courtesy of BiblePlaces Dotcom): 
LMLK handles excavated from Arad (nowadays pronounced like "a rod", not like "Arab") require a special presentation of the various excavation reports. Yohanan Aharoni & Ruth Amiran wrote the first report of LMLK data in 1964 via IEJ vol. 14 #3, "Excavations at Tel Arad: Preliminary Report on the First Season, 1962" (published by The Israel Exploration Society, Jerusalem; p. 138 & Pl. 33C) summarized in the following table:
Aharoni & Amiran directed most of the excavation work during the 1960s; then after Yohanan's death, Miriam Aharoni co-authored the 1981 book, "Arad Inscriptions" (published by The Israel Exploration Society, Jerusalem), that summarized 9 handles from 5 excavation seasons & provided additional details on p. 126:
The logical deductions noted in this table account for all 5 in the first table. In BAR vol. 13 #2 (Mar/Apr 1987, p. 42) Ruth Amiran, Rolf Goethert & Ornit Ilan note that an Hxx handle was found during the 1976 season "in the central area of the third millennium B.C. Canaanite city, our Area M." Handle Reg. No. 115/1 is at the IAA & they granted permission for its display on this website on 5-26-2003. On 11-17-2003 Ze'ev Herzog contributed photos of 4 other handles:
"17-327/2" shows a portion of a pottery fragment presumed to have traces of a LMLK stamp (images resembling x2x & x4x icon heads); however, an analysis of the shadows produced by the lighting angle indicates that these traces appear in a rough, damaged area--probably near the jar joint. If this is the case, then these traces are simply illusions & this handle cannot be classified as an x2x or x4x stamp. Here you can see the untouched photo & a copy of it with markings to illustrate the icon illusions & smooth/rough ware division:  
Irit Ziffer provided a photo of a fifth handle (with a weak H2D stamp) kept at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv (Museum Reg. No. MHP 40.03, Arad Reg. No. 15287/1). In the LMLK corpus of his 1999 book, "Theology, History, and Archaeology in the Chronicler's Account of Hezekiah", Andrew Vaughn listed 10 handles for Arad based on a Hebrew article in Hadashot Arkheologiyot 34 by Ruth Amiran in 1980. Combining all of the available data (including re-attribution details provided by Ze'ev Herzog & Lily Singer-Avitz) produces this revision to the table (colored red):
In TA vol. 29 #1, 2002, Lily Singer-Avitz noted that there have been changes in the stratigraphic attribution of the loci & that only one of the LMLK handles was found in stratigraphic context (i.e., Reg. No. 15437/1, the only one excavated from Stratum 8). Her statement was probably based on the belief that all LMLK stamps pre-date the Assyrian destruction layer, which is Stratum 8 at Arad. Until a final report is published, it remains to be seen whether the H2D handle with Circle marks (Reg. No. 115/1) found in Stratum 7 is actually out of context considering the chronological division suggested in the book, "LMLK--A Mystery Belonging to the King vol. 1" based on data presented on the Stratigraphy page of this website. General statistics:
H2D
S4L
x2U
xxx
Z2U
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This page was created on July 29, 2003, & last updated on November 5, 2006 |
