Chephirah, the “missing” למלך site
If you’re interested in the archaeology of Israel and you haven’t already read G. M. Grena’s post about Chephirah (from a couple of days ago, Feb. 10), you ought to take a look. It’s entertaining and informative.
4 comments Christopher Heard | archaeology, biblical world
Thank you so much for the link! I have a Wikipedia article in preparation featuring an original English version of the German & French site maps (scheduled for publication this weekend). Also, Prof. Othmar Keel informed me that he wrote about this excavation in:
O. Keel & M. Küchler, Orte und Landschaften der Bibel II. Der Süden, Zürich & Göttingen 1982, p. 802.
Big kudos to him! I’ve not yet obtained it, but will integrate it into the slow-building bibliography. Also, I’ve received a photo of the “other” LMLK handle, & it is indeed stampless; but Dr. Vriezen now believes there may have been a 3rd handle with the 4-winged icon, which he distinctly remembers seeing.
Fun stuff!
Behold!
I didn’t get the sense from Grena’s article that Chephirah was the missing l’melekh site. He just indicated that some handles with the proper seals were found there. There are over 2000 such handles found throughout ancient Judah. Maybe they were shipped to different sites but finding a few doesn’t prove that to be the missing site known as mmst.
I recently read David and Solomon by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. On page 132, it describes the emergence of Judah as a kingdom at the end of the 8th Century BCE. Inscribed seals and inscribed stone weights began to appear. Standardized storage jars had distinctive seal impressions of a winged sun disc or scarab beetle on its handle. In Hebrew, the seal had the word “‘lmlk’ (“belonging to the king”).” One of the following four cities were also on the inscription: Hebron, Sokoh, Ziph,and ‘Mmst’ (no it’s not a typo) unidentified as of the time of the writing of this book. All the seals date to Hezekiah’s time at the end of the 8th century BCE.
Imagine my surprise when my first Biblical Archaeology Review magazine (Sept/Oct 2006) identifies Mmst’s location. The following is a summary: Gabriel Barkay writes that it had to be occupied at Hezekiah’s time and in northern Judah. “Mmst must be a city comparable in size and importance to the other three cities” mentioned on the handles. The reason for this is that “Hebron represents the southern Judean Hills; Sokoh the areas of the Shephelah (the Judean foothills); and Ziph, the fringe areas (the wilderness in the southern and eastern parts of the kingdom)…It stands to reason [Mmst]…represents the area of the northern Judean Hills, around the capitol, Jerusalem.”
Barkay targets RAMAT RAHEL because aside from Lachish (in the Shephelah) and Jerusalem, this site has the most (164) l’melekh handles discovered in all of Judah.
Dated to the end of the 8th century BCE during the time of Hezekiah, RAMAT RAHEL was a palace complex located halfway between Jerusalem and Bethlehem and its design indicates it was influenced by the style of the Northern kingdom capitol at Samaria. It had Proto-Ionic capitols and casemate walls. The ‘superb quality of the masonry’ included ‘ashlars (shaped rectangular stones) so masterfully cut that no mortar was needed.’ This complex certainly qualifies as an administrative center in its size and grandeur, suitable for l’melekh, the king. [I think this article makes a much stronger case for identifying a particular place as the fourth lmlk site.]
An interesting sidebar to this is that a pottery sherd found in Ramat Rahel might have the only portrait of a Judean king ever discovered. Barkay thinks that it is of Hezekiah, himself. I think it could alternatively represent Menasseh, Hezekiah’s son who was involved in the rebuilding of the palace after Sennacherib destroyed it during Hezekiah’s failed revolt against Assyria around 701 BCE.
*Check out my blog about the placement of the cherubim over the Ark of the Covenant vs the ones in Solomon’s temple
Thank you for posting your comments, Seth S. Unfortunately, you misinterpreted the reference to “missing” in the subject of this blog. The geographical mystery surrounding the enigmatic MMST inscription is completely unrelated to Chephirah/Kefire. MMST ain’t missing; scholars just can’t agree on its location, or if it was a specific place or a general region, or if it even was a location.
Finkelstein & Silberman have only superficial knowledge of LMLK seals. What they wrote in their book you quoted is relatively accurate & typical for most scholars, but not of much use.
As for Ramat Rahel, I’d highly recommend that you read my blog entry on this issue, which I posted a year ago.
I apologize for the delay here–I see you wrote a few weeks ago, but I don’t visit re-read every blog I post to every day, & unfortunately Higgaion doesn’t have the feature that some other blogs do, where commentators can be notified via E-mail when someone adds a new comment.