Israeli archaeologists discovered a 2,700-year-old governor’s seal Monday that scholars say corroborates part of Biblical history and supports Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Archaeologists said the clay seal validates the Bible’s account of there being a governor of the city of Jerusalem over 2,000 years ago, according to Reuters. Archaeologist Shimon Cohen excavated the seal, which is about the size of a coin, in Old Jerusalem near the plaza of the Western Wall and found that it bore an inscription in ancient Hebrew that reads “belonging to the governor of the city.”
“The title ‘governor of the city’ is known from the Bible and from extra-Biblical documents, and refers to an official appointed by the king,” wrote professors Tallay Ornan and Benjamin Sass of Hebrew and Tel Aviv Universities, according to Daily Mail. “Governors of Jerusalem are mentioned twice in the Bible: in 2 Kings, Joshua is the governor of the city in the days of Hezekiah, and in 2 Chronicles, Maaseiah is the governor of the city in the days of Josiah.”
The discovery not only validates certain historical accounts in the Bible, but also the fact that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel according to Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.
Barkat told Daily Mail that the seal’s discovery “shows that already 2700 years ago, Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, was a strong and central city. Jerusalem is one of the most ancient capitals of the world, continually populated by the Jewish people for more than 3000 years.”
Dr. Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah told Arutz Sheva that the artifact was likely attached to a shipment of goods sent by the city governor and borne for a building nearby the site of the excavation.
The impression on the seal depicts two men facing each other in mirror image of one another wearing striped garments ending at their knees. Archaeologists estimated the age of the coin according to the age of the soil from which they excavated it, which dates to the First Temple period in the 6th or 7th century BC.
“This is the first time that such a sealing is found in an authorized excavation,” Bdolah added.
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