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Hebrew lmlk jar handles
Vaughn Andrew (vaughn@CCSG.TAU.AC.IL)
Thu, 17 Feb 1994 22:20:12 +0200
Dear Colleague:
This is a letter from Gabriel Barkay and Andrew Vaughn, Institute
of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University. We are sending this letter
to everyone on ANTHRO-L list.
We are preparing a complete list of all the impressions
associated with the Hebrew "lmlk" ("to the king" in Hebrew)
type jars: the lmlk, "private", concentric circle,
ichnographic, and rosette impressions. For those who are not familar
with the topic, these are jars found in southern Judah (today Israel)
during the late 8th century, BCE. We would be very grateful if you would
willing to help us.
The compilation of this list is extremely important. Although
the current scholarly literature only estimates the existence of
approximately 1000 lmlk impressions, our preliminary research
indicates that the actual number is presently around 2000. That
is to say, we have found that only half of the known lmlk handles
are accounted for in the scholarly literature. As you can see,
an accurate list of all these seal impressions will make an
important contribution to the scholarly discussion on this topic.
The reason for the great difference in the number of published
impressions and the actual number of impression is due to both
recent unpublished finds and the fact that many older unpublished
older are now found in various collections of institutions and
individual. For instance, we located about 30 lmlk impressions
in a seemingly out of the way library in Louisiana which had
aquired the handles from a donor in the 1930's. Thus, we are
attempting to make contact with as many people as possible in
order to locate as many of the impressions as possible.
We would be very grateful if you would take a few moments to help
us in our endeavor to build this complete list. If your
institution or anyone you know has any lmlk type impressions, we
would appreciate your sending the appropriate mailing address(es)
and email address(es) to us. We will then get in contact with
them and get an acurate listing.
Thank you in advance for your kind assistance in this matter.
Faithfully Yours,
Gabriel Barkay
Andrew Vaughn
Institute of Archaeology
Tel Aviv University
P.O.B. 39040
69 978 Tel Aviv
ISRAEL
internet: vaughn@ccsg.tau.ac.il
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