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A Standing Nude Male Holding a Staff

A Standing Nude Male Holding a Staff



A standing nude male holding a staff would be a typical combination of Greek and Eastern motifs; the naked male the Greek contribution. (Drawing by Julia latesta after Meshorer and Qedar 1999: 16.)

Among the locally made seals are all those that bear names of one of the districts of the satrapy Abar-nahara, including Yehud, Samaria, and Ammon. Some seals mention only the name of the district. Others link the place name with the personal name of a governmental official. From Yehud, for example, a seal was found with the name of “Shelomit, the maidservant of Elnathan, the Governor” (Meyers 1985: 33–38). Other seals mention individuals including “belonging to Elʾazar,” or “belonging to Baruch, son of Shimʾi.” Samarian sealings mention Sanballat, and a certain “Isaiah, the son of Sanballat.” Official sealings from Yehud are inscribed in Aramaic, usually with a plan spelling of the district’s name: YHWH. Some scholars have argued that these seals are to be associated with the Hellenistic period. However, the numismatic record leads us to conclude that the seals reading Yehud in Aramaic are to be considered Persian, with the spelling Yehudah, in Hebrew, preferred later in the Hellenistic period. This was the time when the paleo-Hebrew script came to predominate in Jerusalem and its environs (Cross 2003: 138–45; Betlyon 1986: 633–42).


Betlyon, John W. “A People Transformed: Palestine in the Persian Period.” Near Eastern Archaeology 68.1–4 (2005): 51. Print.

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