A 2,700-year-old seal from ancient Judea was found in a 2,000-year-old unlooted grave this summer. The find is spectacular for several reasons, not the least of which is that the grave is located in southern Russia near the Black Sea, and the woman warrior buried in it does not appear to have been Jewish.
Above and above right: the seal
“Stunning” Ancient Judean Seal Found – In Non-Jewish Grave In Southern Russia
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
A 2,700-year-old seal from ancient Judea was found in a 2,000-year-old unlooted grave this summer. The find is spectacular for several reasons, not the least of which is that the grave is located in southern Russia near the Black Sea, and the woman warrior buried in it does not appear to have been Jewish.
According to a report in Ha'aretz, the undisturbed grave of the Sarmatian noblewoman, located near Rostov-on-Don, was excavated archeologists from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Archaeology who found the carnelian seal with ancient engraved Hebrew letters. They also found beautiful gold jewelry and other artifacts, including wooden dishes and a cup placed on her burial at her right hand. At her feet were pieces of a bronze bucket with a floral design along with a ladle with the head of a Gorgon. Near her pelvis was a gold vial with a lid and as yet unidentified fossilized contents. All those items and others found in the tomb date from the 1st century BCE to the 1st century AD – except the mysterious Judean seal carved into a semiprecious carnelian stone and placed at burial on her chest.
The Russian archeologists first thought the seal was written in Phoenician or early Aramaic. But archaeology bloggers Jim Davila of the PaleoJudaica blog and Aviv Benedix strongly suspected the letters were paleo-Hebrew, and this was confirmed by Georgetown University’s Professor Christopher Rollstone, an epigraphy expert.
The seal reads “Elyashib.” (Ha’aretz tries to link this to Elyahib son of Oshiyahu, the commander of a Judea fortress in Arad in present day southern Israel, but Davila points out this is unlikely.
The Sarmatian people (not to be confused with the Samaritans who still live today in the West bank) originated in Central Asia. They migrated north over several centuries and eventually reached Scythia and southern Russland (southern Russia), both of which they had conquered by the 2nd century BCE, about 200 years before the warrior woman was buried. Sarmatian women fought alongside their men, and some scholars of the ancient world believe they served as the basis for the ancient Greek myths about the Amazons.
Rollston, who dates the seal at about 700 BCE, is troubled by one letter of the inscription.
"The shin bothers me, though. It's not a good 8th-century form (rather a pretty bad one), though the rest of the forms are standard 8th-century BCE forms,” he reportedly said.
Gemstone seals such as this were collected and traded throughout the ancient world, and the trade in them is likely how the very ancient Elyashib seal eventually ended up in ancient southern Russia.