A 40-Shekel Weight with a Hieratic Numeral

Abstract

2) Its use in the royal stamp-impressions of the Southern Kingdom, probably during the reign of Josiah, is to be explained as a result of that king's claim to be the legitimate heir to the Northern Kingdom. 3) The fact that another device-identified as a winged sun-diskalso appears on the royal stamp-impressions of Judah while in every other respect the two types of stamp are identical (in motif and inscription, not in workmanship) suggests that the device is the royal symbol of the Southern Kingdom. 4) While the rendering of the winged sun-disk motif on the stampimpressions is very crude, its prototype is probably to be sought in a version of the winged sun-disk motif which was demonstrably current in Syria during the period of the Monarchy. 5) The use of the two devices on the royal stamp-impressions is a clear demonstration of Josiah's overt claim to be the successor to the Israelite Kingdom as it existed under David and Solomon. 6) The crudeness of the renderings of both devices and the addition of the word 1-m-1-k to both is interpreted as a result of haste, of the lack of former seals to use as models, and the necessity of making the significance of the two admittedly crude and probably forgotten symbols known to all citizens of the newly reconstituted and independent kingdom. Admittedly, the evidence for all parts of the argument is not of equal weight, but it does provide an explanation for the two symbols on the royal stamp-impressions, their historical setting, and their crude rendering. Possibly, a royal seal of the House of Judah may some day be found to prove or disprove the above thesis.