Mattaniah's Seal
Ever since the Diggings group excavated at the Western Wall we have taken a keen interest in work in that area. We have commented on Mazar's discovery of what she claims is a wall from the time of David and Solomon and discussed other discoveries around the Temple Mount.
Now we have news of a new and significant find from a drainage ditch below Robinson's Arch. The excavations are sponsored by the Ir David Foundation (City of David Foundation), a group whose impartiality has been called into question. I have no problem with that, so long as the work is done well and the facts, rather than their interpretation, are made available. What is more concerning is the legality of some of the work being done, where the rights of the Palestinians are being treated in a very cavalier manner.
Despite concerns over the sponsor, however, the work is being conducted by Eli Shukron on behalf of the Israeli Antiquities Authority and there is no reason to doubt that it is being done in a proper and professional manner. Most of the work is being done by volunteers from the Screening the Waste Project in the Emek Tzurim National Park, where the earth dumped by the Waqf vandals from the Temple Mount is being painstakingly examined to rescue what can be recovered from that archaeological disaster. Among the finds are Babylonian and Roman arrowheads, coins, carved and decorated stones, seal impressions (bullae) and ostraca.
Some of this same painstaking approach was adopted as Eli Shukron cleared the drain below Robinson's Arch. Once the drain was cleared, photographed and mapped the next thing to be cleared away was the drain itself - archaeology is essentially a destructive process! To Shukron's delight, beneath it was the remains of a house that dated to the end of the First Temple Period - in other words, to shortly before the destruction of Solomon's Temple by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC.
Every bucketful of earth was meticulously sifted twice, first dry sifting (always an unpleasant process that produces clouds of dust) and then wet-sifted in which the dirt is flooded with copious amounts of water so that anything organic will float to the surface. The water also helps to break up any clods of earth that may have survived the original dry sifting and which may contain something of interest.
The work has paid off, for one sharp-eyed worker spotted a tiny oval of semi-precious stone, curved on top and flat on the bottom. When he turned it over, he found an inscription on the flat surface. The object was a seal, used in ancient times as we might use a signature today - to validate documents or otherwise mark ownership.
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| The newly discovered 'Mattaniah' Seal. The area of damage at bottom right is clearly visible. |
Reading ancient Hebrew is not always easy and in the case of a seal the process is complicated by the fact that the letters should be reversed so that the seal impression will be the right way round. (Famously, Eilat Mazar read one ancient Hebrew letter the wrong way round, leading her to announce the discovery of the personal seal of a person mentioned in the Bible!) When the experts examined this seal, however, they made no such mistakes. The inscription clearly reads "LMTNYHWBNHW..." - which may not mean a lot to you, but this is what it means.
L' is the preposition "to" or "for" and in this case means "belonging to". MTNYHW is "Matanyahu", a Hebrew name meaning "Given to YHWH" or "dedicated to YHWH"; this name was popular towards the end of the Second Temple Period. Our Bibles render this as "Mattaniah" BN is "ben" or "son of". Unfortunately part of the seal is damaged, so all we have is the initial letter of the father's name - H. That is enough, however, to rule out the Mattaniah mentioned in 2 Kings 24:17
However it is likely that this Mattaniah, whoever he was, was involved in a siege of Jerusalem, because the seal was found on the floor of the building and the floor was not only littered with broken pottery typical of the period, but also with evidence of a fire that had brought the roof and walls of the house crashing down. It is also possible that Mattaniah was a member of the upper class of society, because a house in the upper part of town and close to the temple was probably a privilege that only the rich could afford.
Interestingly, the drainage channel, which was first explored by Professor Benjamin Mazar, cuts through two tombs typical of the Iron Age. Tombs were always constructed outside the city walls, so the building work which called for the drain must come after the tombs and therefore is most probably to be dated to the period of King Hezekiah, who is known to have expanded the city of Jerusalem westward to include Mount Zion.
However the house is described in the Israeli Antiquities Report as "discovered below the base of the ancient drainage channel", which implies that the house preceded the construction of the channel. It is possible, therefore, that the house and its owner, Mattaniah, lived before Hezekiah and were involved in some attack on Jerusalem, perhaps the one recorded in 2 Kings 16:5 when Hezekiah's father, Ahaz, was attacked by Rezin king of Syria and Pekah king of Israel.
© Kendall K. Down 2012
