| Shema Seal | |
|---|---|
 Postage stamp depicting the Shema Seal | |
| Material | (Original) Jasper (Bulla) Clay |
| Writing | Paleo Hebrew |
| Created | 8th century BCE |
| Discovered | (Original) 1904, Megiddo, Israel (Bulla) bought from a Bedouin market in 1980 |
| Present location | (Original) unknown (Bulla) Rockefeller Museum, Jerusalem |
The Shema Seal is an ancient jasper seal that dates to the 8th century BCE and mentions the King of ancient Israel, Jeroboam. [1] [2] [3]
Archaeologist Gottlieb Schumacher and his team began excavating at Megiddo and found the seal during a three-year excavation program. [6] The seal was discovered in 1904, in an excavation dump. The layers in which it was found were dated to the eighth century BCE. [7] [8] Schumacher sent the original seal to Istanbul, but it was never returned. [9] In 1966 Gottlieb's daughter gave a testimonial that her father told her that the seal was placed in Abdul Hamid II tomb. [10] A bronze cast was made before it was sent away. [11] [12]
The Shema bulla is a scaled down version of the Meggido seal. [13] [14] [15] The bulla's owner claimed to have bought it in the 1980s in Bedouin market in Be'er Sheva for 10 shekels. [16] [17] [18] However, the owner's account was refuted by noted antiquities expert and trader Robert Deutsch, who provided evidence for the purchase of the bulla, along with a group of other fake bullas, from a known Jerusalem antiquities trader in Jerusalem. Deutsch went on to provide evidence for the bulla's forgery. [19]
“Belonging to Shema (שמע) [20] the servant of Jeroboam.” [21] [22]
לשמע עבדירבעם
lshmˁ ˁbd yrbˁm [1]
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