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Assyrian pottery shard with a cuneiform inscription inquiring about late payment of taxes from the Kingdom of Judah. | Credit: Close-up of a ceramic fragment with a cuneiform inscription
A 2,700-year-old pottery shard found near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is the first known correspondence between Assyrian kingdom to Kingdom of Judah ever found in the city.
The 1-inch-long (2.5-centimeter) sherd (a term archaeologists use to describe pottery fragments) is covered with cuneiform writing and dates to the First Temple period (1000-586 BC). It appears to contain royal correspondence from the Kingdom of Assyria to the Kingdom of Judah demanding the status of an overdue tribute.
The inscription is written in Akkadian, which was spoken in the Middle Eastincluding Assyria, and which was written using a cuneiform text.
“The inscription is direct evidence of official correspondence between the Assyrian Empire and the Kingdom of Judah. Ayala ZilbersteinA statement from the Director of Excavations said on behalf of the IAA. “This discovery adds to our understanding of the depth of the Assyrian presence in Jerusalem and its influence on and participation in the affairs of the kingdom of Judea.”
According to the statement, the shard was found during excavations near the western wall of the Temple Mount. Researchers discovered it when fragments were unearthed in Emek Tzurim National Park.
“I was sifting through the dirt and suddenly I noticed a shard with a strange decoration,” Moriah Cohen, who works at Emek Tzurim’s Archaeological Space, an attraction where visitors can help search for artifacts, said in a statement. Cohen added that “I screamed with excitement after I determined that it was no decoration and was actually a cuneira.”
She added that the shard was found in the dirt along the edge of Jerusalem’s central drainage canal, which dates to the Second Temple period (516 BC to AD 70). But the fact that the shard was found there indicates that the area “was a center of activity for high-ranking ministers and individuals” during the First Temple period, Zilberstein said.
It’s likely that the shard was actually part of an inscribed royal seal, or an imprint used to seal an official letter from the Assyrian court, Assyriologists say. Peter ZilbergBar-Ilan University and Filipas VukosavovichThe IAA said in a joint statement.
A fragment of Assyrian pottery was found near this underground drainage channel. | Credit: Shai Halevi, Israel Antiquities Authority
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“These types of bullae or seals left an impression that was sometimes accompanied by a short inscription in Assyrian cuneiform indicating the contents of the package or the destination,” they said.
This idea supports the hypothesis that the correspondence was royal about late payment. The term mentioned in the text is the first of Av, the summer month of the Jewish and Mesopotamian calendar. It also mentions a charioteer, a position known from Assyrian records, who would have delivered a royal message.
Although the message does not identify a king of Judah, it was likely addressed to the court of kings Hezekiah, Manasseh or Josiah, the latter of whom ruled the kingdom of Judah when it was a vassal kingdom of Assyria, according to the report.
It is also unclear why the payment was delayed.
“While we cannot determine the basis for this claim, whether it arose simply from a technical delay or was made as a deliberate, politically significant move, the very existence of such an official appeal would seem to indicate some point of friction between Judah and the imperial government,” Zilberg and Vukosavovich said.
Analysis of the core material suggests that it was not made locally in Jerusalem. Anat Cohen-WeinbergerIAA petrography researcher, said in a statement. Rather, its mineral composition is consistent with Assyrian Kingdom cities such as Nineveh.
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“Chemical analysis of the bull’s composition is currently underway” to more accurately determine its origin, Cohen-Weinberger added.
The narrowness may be small, but the finding is significant, Zilberg and Vukosavovich said.
“The find opens a window to understand the political and administrative connections between Judah and Assyria,” Zilberg and Vukosavovich explained. “This is the first evidence of official and perhaps even tense communication between Jerusalem and the world’s most powerful superpower in the period we are discussing.”