Ancient Seal Confirms Temple Practices

April 10, 2012

However, Prof. Shlomo Naeh at the Hebrew University's Talmud Department and the head of the university's Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies points out several problems with this explanation.

“Labeling an object as “pure” is not reasonable because according to ritual law, an object can easily lose its purity at any time…Moreover, symbols of purity must be attached in a way that prevents their removal or transfer to another object, but this artifact was not found to contain spurs or holes for string that would have enabled it to be firmly attached. And it would not have been used as a stamp, because the writing on it is from right to left and not in the mirror-image writing typically used on stamps.”

Instead, Naeh suggests that the object is a kind of voucher or token, referred to in the Mishnah (a compilation of Jewish oral tradition) as a seal, which enabled the Temple administrator to keep track of commerce related to offerings. Every animal sacrifice was accompanied by additional offerings consisting of flour, wine, and oil and had to be purchased in the Temple to ensure they were kosher and pure.

According to the Mishnah, the sale of these additional offerings was managed in a centralized manner: the person bringing the sacrifice would pay for them at the Temple “office” and receive a seal-like object with Aramaic writing listing the type of sacrifice. The person would then bring the seal to the seller of additional offerings and receive the specified allotment.

According to Naeh, the newly-discovered artifact was used to track these transactions. The words deka leyah are an abbreviated code for dakhar aleph le-Yehoyariv, necessitated by the object's small size. Dakhar in Aramaic means “male” (signifying a ram). Aleph (the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet) indicates the first day of the week. Yehoyariv is the name of the priestly family on duty at the Temple. Therefore, the buyer was entitled to the additional offerings for a ram, on Sunday during the shift of the Yehoyariv clan.

Naeh explains, “This archaeological discovery is living proof that the Temple was administered as described in the Mishnah. This interpretation also explains why this object is such a rare find: because the seals mentioned in the Mishnah were used only in the Temple area…” Naeh added that researchers have raised doubts about the credibility of early rabbinical descriptions of Temple activity. However, in this instance, the Mishnah was shown to be accurate.

In addition to this item, other artifacts dating to the Second Temple Period were discovered. Some are even earlier and date to the time of the Hasmoneans, such as oil lamps, ceramic cooking pots and a fusiform juglet that may have contained oils and perfume.

Source: From a Hebrew University press release

Photo Credit: Isranet/IAA