Wednesday, October 24, 2007

MORE ON THE JEZEBEL SEAL from the Jerusalem Post:
Dutch scholar claims ancient seal was Queen Jezebel's
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS

An ancient seal that surfaced in Israel more than four decades ago belonged to the biblical Queen Jezebel, according to a new study released on Tuesday by a Dutch university.

[...]

But the study by Utrecht University Old Testament scholar and Protestant minister Dr. Marjo Korpel, 48, concludes that the seal must have belonged to Jezebel, based on the symbols that appear on it.

The seal, which was donated to the Israel Department of Antiquities in the early 1960s by the private Voss-Hahn collection, not only bears symbols that indicate a female owner but also "well-worked" symbols that designate that owner as royalty, Korpel said.

Moreover, the seal is exceptionally large compared to those commonly possessed by ordinary citizens, she added.

Korpel, who is not an archeologist, suggested that the upper edge of the seal, which is chipped off, must have originally included two broken-off letters that would have correctly spelled Jezebel's name.

Korpel conceded that her thesis was "a real hypothesis" that remained uncorroborated by any archeological bodies, including the Israel Antiquities Authority, and that it had been reached by a process of elimination.

[...]
It seems that Korpel's work is being published in a specialist journal:
The Utrecht study, which has been published in the the Journal for Semitics, indicates that Jezebel possessed her own seal, enabling her to operate independently of Ahab.
This is a South African journal about which I know little.

Background here.

UPDATE: Reuters also has an article on Korpel's theory here.

UPDATE: Amihai Matzar is skeptical. (Via the Agade list.)