Bible Synapse
LMLK seal impressions
Object · late 8th century BC · Assyria and Babylon · also called LMLK seal, Royal Judahite jar handles, lmlk stamps
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- late 8th century BC (the stamped storage jars)
- Found
- Many sites in Judah, above all Lachish and Jerusalem, 1870. The first were published by Charles Warren in 1870, and more than 2,000 have been recorded since. David Ussishkin’s excavations at Lachish (from 1973) recovered whole stamped jars crushed under the debris of the city destroyed in 701 BC.
- Now
- Israel Museum and many other collections
- Passages
- 2 Chronicles 32:27–29, 2 Kings 18:13
What it is
Handles of large storage jars stamped, before firing, with a royal seal: the Hebrew word lmlk, “belonging to the king”, a winged emblem (a four-winged scarab or a two-winged sun disc), and one of four place names, Hebron, Socoh, Ziph or the still unidentified mmšt. Specialists distinguish at least 21 different royal seals, and almost all the handles come from sites in Judah. At Lachish, jars bearing all the main classes of stamp were found together, sealed beneath the destruction layer of 701 BC.
How it connects to the Bible
Because all the types were in use together in the city that Sennacherib destroyed, most scholars date the jars to the reign of Hezekiah. Many link them with his preparations for revolt against Assyria, when Chronicles says he built “storehouses also for the increase of corn, and wine, and oil” (2 Chronicles 32:28), before Sennacherib came against “all the fenced cities of Judah” (2 Kings 18:13).
What scholars debate
What the jars were for (army supplies, taxes or some other levy) is still debated, as is whether some seal types were also used before or after Hezekiah’s reign.