‘Extremely rare, beautiful’ First Temple-era ‘genie’ seal discovered in Jerusalem

A rare and unique First Temple period stone seal that features paleo-Hebrew script and an image of a protective demon or genie has been discovered in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Thursday.

The small, black stone seal is “one of the most beautiful ever discovered in excavations in ancient Jerusalem, and is executed at the highest artistic level,” Dr. Yuval Baruch and Navot Rom, IAA excavation directors, said in the statement.

The seal was discovered in the Davidson Archaeological Garden, just south of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, during ongoing excavations jointly conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the City of David Foundation.

The artifact, thought by experts to be some 2,700 years old, is engraved with the words “LeYehoʼezer ben Hoshʼayahu” — “For Yeho’ezer son of Hosh’ayahu” — in paleo-Hebrew script. The words are in mirror writing so that the seal could be used to impress the words into wax.

It is likely that the owner was a senior official during the Kingdom of Judah and used the seal to sign documents or certificates, the IAA said.

The seal, which has a hole running through it so that it could be attached to a chain and worn around the neck, also features an image of a winged figure, thought to be a demon or genie, that shows an Assyrian influence.

The image is “depicted in profile… with wings; wearing a long, striped shirt, and striding towards the right. The figure has a mane of long curls covering the nape of the neck, and on its head is a hat or a crown. The figure raises one arm forward, with an open palm; perhaps to suggest some object it is holding,” the IAA said.

“This is an extremely rare and unusual discovery. This is the first time that a winged ‘genie’ – a protective magical figure – has been found in Israeli and regional archaeology. Figures of winged demons are known in the Neo-Assyrian art of the 9th-7th Centuries BCE, and they were considered a kind of protective demon,” Dr. Filip Vukosavović, an assyriologist and IAA archaeologist, said of the seal.

It seems the seal originally contained just the image of the winged figure, and the text was inscribed later. At first, the item was probably “worn as an amulet around the neck of a man named Hoshʼayahu, who held a senior position in the Kingdom of Judah’s administration,” the IAA said.

When Hosh’ayahu died, his son Yeho’ezer inherited the seal, and he “added his name and his father’s name on either side of the demon,” in an effort to “directly appropriate to himself the beneficial qualities he believed the talisman embodied as a magical item,” the archaeologists hypothesized.

The paleo-Hebrew inscription “was done in a sloppy manner,” unlike the “careful engraving of the demon,” indicating that it could have been “Yehoʼezer himself who engraved the names on the object,” explained Prof. Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa, who partnered in the research.

The name Yeho’ezer appears in the Bible in “its abbreviated form” of Yo’ezer, one of King David’s warriors mentioned in Chronicles I 12:7, the IAA noted. Also, in Jeremiah (43:2), which depicts events thought to have occurred during the same period that the seal was in use, the name “Azariah ben Hosh’aya” appears. “Hosh’aya” is the abbreviated form of Hoshʼayahu.

Rare First Temple-era seal found in Jerusalem, in an image released on August 29, 2023. (Eliyahu Yanai/City of David)

The winged figure on the seal is “in a distinct Neo-Assyrian style” that is “unique and very rare in the glyphic styles of the late First Temple period,” IAA archaeologist Baruch said. This shows the “clearly evident” influence of the ascendant Assyrian Empire, “which had conquered the entire region,” he said.

“Judah in general, and Jerusalem in particular at that time, was subject to the hegemony of the Assyrian Empire and was influenced by it – a reality also reflected in cultural and artistic aspects,” he explained.

The owner “chose a demon to be the insignia of his personal seal,” showing “that he belonged to the broader cultural context, just like people today in Israel who see themselves as part of Western culture,” Baruch said.

“Yet within that feeling, this Yehoʼezer also held firmly onto his local identity, and thus his name is written in Hebrew script, and his name is a Hebrew name, which belongs to Judah’s culture,” he added.

This dual nature of the artifact, containing both Judaic and Assyrian elements, shows “the extent of  Assyrian culture’s influence in our region, and especially in Jerusalem,” something that in recent years has become increasingly evident due to the ongoing excavations in the Old City and the City of David, Baruch said.

More information about the seal is to be presented to the public next week, at the annual “City of David Research Conference,” which takes place on Wednesday, September 4 in Jerusalem.