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Sass/ Uehlinger lconography of Northwest Semitic

lnscribed Seals

ORBIS BIBLICUS ET ORIENTALIS

Published by the Biblical Institute

of the University of Fribourg Switzerland the Seminar für Biblische Zeitgeschichte of the University of Münster i.W. Federal Republic of Germany and the Schweizerische Gesellschaft für orientalische Altertumswissenschaft

Editor:

Othmar Keel

Coeditors: Erich Zenger and Albert de Pury

Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 125

Studies in the lconography

of Northwest Se-mitic lnscribed Seals

Proceedings

of a symposium held in Fribourg on April

17-20, 1991

edited by

Benjamin

Sass and Christoph Uehlinger

University

Press Fribourg Switzerland

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme

Studies

in the lconography of Northwest Semitic lnscribed Seals.

Proceedings

of a symposium held in Fribourg on April 17-20, 1991. Edited by Benjamin Sassand Christoph Uehlinger.-Freiburg, Schweiz: Univ.- (Orbis biblicus et orientalis; 125)

ISBN 3-525-53760-3 (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht)

ISBN 3-7278-0870-5 (Univ.-Verl.)

NE: Sass, Benjamin [Hrsg.]; Uehlinger, Christoph [Hrsg.]; CT

Publication subsidized

by the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences, Berne

Die Druckvorlagen wurden von den Herausgebern

als reprofertige Dokumente zur Verfügung gestellt

Paulusdruckerei

Freiburg Schweiz

ISBN

ISBN 3-525-53760-3 (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht)

CONTENTS

Preface

Christoph Uehlinger

lntroduction: The Status of lconography in the Study of North west Sernitic lnscribed Seals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Andre Lemaire

Les criteres non-iconographiques de la classification des sceaux nord-ouest semitiques inscrits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Dominique Parayre

dans l'attribution d'un sceau a une aire culturelle ou a un atelier .

Tallay Oman

Tue Mesopotamian Influence on West Semitic Inscribed Seals:

A Preference for the Depiction

of Mortals . . . . . . . . . . .

Pierre Bordreuil

Le repertoire iconographique des sceaux arameens inscrits et son evolution

Eric Gubel

Tue lconography

of Inscribed Phoenician Glyptic

Ulrich Hübner

Das ikonographische Repertoire der ammonitischen Siegel und seine Entwicklung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Stefan Timm

Das ikonographische Repertoire der moabitischen Siegel und seine Entwicklung: vom Maximalismus zum Minimalismus . .

Benjamin Sass

The Pre-Exilic Hebrew Seals: lconism

vs. Aniconism . . . .

Christoph Uehlinger

Northwest Semitic Inscribed Seals, lconography and Syro

Palestinian Religions

of Iron Age II: Some Afterthoughts and

Conclusions .

List of Contributors

Bibliography and Abbreviations

Indices

A. General

B. Northwest Semitic letters and words . . . . . C. Names of seal owners and other legends or personal names VII XI 1 27
52
74
101
130
161
194
257

290 291

317
317
329
330

PREFACE

Tue present volume contains revised versions

of the papers read at a sym posium entitled "Tue lconography of Northwest Semitic Inscribed Seals", held at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) on April 17-20, 1991. The symposium was planned as part of a research project headed by Prof. Othmar

Keel, with Benjamin Sass

as associate, and sponsored by the Swiss National Fund for Scientific Research (project no. 12-26253.89: "Origin and effect of the biblical image ban as reflected in inscribed Hebrew seals of the 9th to 6th centuries BC"). lt took place under the auspices of the Biblical Institute of the

University

of Fribourg and the Swiss Society for the Study of the Ancient Orient. Othmar Keel initiated the symposium, selected the topics, invited the contributors, and chaired the working sessions.

Dr Dominique Collon (Lon

don, The British Museum) and

Dr Felice Israel (Universita degli Studi di

Genova) participated

as respondents. After three stimulating days of scholarly exchange, summaries of the papers and a synopsis of the symposium were presented at the spring meeting of the Swiss Society for the Study of the An cient Orient.

We recall with gratitude the atrnosphere

of friendship and fruitful scholarly discussion engendered by the warmhearted hospitality of Hildi and Othmar Keel-Leu. Financial support was generously provided by the Swiss National Fund for Scientific Research, the Swiss Society for the Study of the Ancient Orient, the Jean Nordmann Foundation (Fribourg), and the Biblical Institute. With the symposium's successful culmination, it was decided to publish the papers in the "Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis" series. Significant revisions have been made in some of the articles. Furthermore, the editors have added numerous cross-references which, together with the cumulative bibliography and the indices, should enhance the volume's utility for specialists and for scholars in neighbouring fields alike. The introduction and the concluding article have been written during the editorial preparation of the book, when it appeared that a synthesis, a review of some methodological issues and an out line of religio-historical perspectives would be a useful complement to the volume.

VIII PREFACE

During the preparation of this book, we were fortunate to have the help of blage and layout of figures and plates. (In order to facilitate the technical pro duction of the volume and to lower costs, it was decided to present line draw ings wherever possible. Note that these are not to a uniform scale.) Noga Z' evi, Hildi Keel-Leu, lnes Haselbach and Jürgen Rotner contributed nume rous new drawings. To all of them, and to the authors, we express our sin cere thanks. Othmar Keel, who relinquished the editorship of this volume be cause of other duties, nevertheless maintained a keen and encouraging interest in our editorial progress; it is with great pleasure that we acknowledge our gratitude to him.

Haifa and Fribourg,

October 1992 Benjamin Sass

Christoph Uehlinger

PREFACE IX

From left to right: Eric Gubel, Julia Asher Greve (guest), Hildi Keel-Leu, Pierre Bordreuil, Dominique Collon, Benjamin Sass, Ulrich Hübner, Andre Lemaire.

INTRODUCTION: THE STATUS OF ICONOGRAPHY IN THE

STUDY OF NORTHWEST SEMITIC INSCRIBED SEALS

Christoph

UEHLlNGER

Biblical Institute, Fribourg

1. Before Galling: episodic attention

II. Galling 1941: a landmark

ill. Tue decade after Galling: lirnited, but promising response

IV. 1950-1975:

no real progress

V. 1975-1990: growing interest

VI. Tue present status quaestionis

More than fifty years ago, in 1941, Kurt Galling published his article on the iconography of Northwest Semitic inscribed seals, a study breaking new ground in several respects. Half a century later, we still benefit from what remains even today an impressive synthesis. The following introductory re marks double thus as a tribute to the German scholar.1

1. BEFORE GALLING: EPISODIC ATIENTION

Earlier studies2 had concentrated almost exclusively on the epigraphical aspects of Northwest Semitic inscribed seals, namely their palaeography and onomasticon, and confined the treatment of iconography to a mere descrip tion. True, a few of the pioneering authors in the field, such as M. de Vogüe (1868), had devoted some real interest and knowledge in trying to elucidate not only the meaning of the personal names attested in the inscriptions, but also the possible religious significance of the seals' figurative designs. The

1. 1 would like to thank Dr Helga Weippert (Heidelberg) who, in a letter of October 18,

1992, offered some important comments on Galling's scholarly work on seals (see be

low, section II). Thanks are due also to Othmar Keel and Benjamin Sass for their re marks, and to Stewart W atson for improving my English.

2. See Bordreuil 1992: 129-134 for a general history

of research on Northwest Semitic inscribed seals.

XII CHRISTOPH UEHUNGER

case of Phoenician seals with their abundance of representations of Egyptian religious symbols seemed especially intriguing to de Vogüe, as it demon strated a strong influence of Egyptian upon Phoenician religion long before hermetism (ibid: 107t). And the presence of a striding bull on a Hebrew seal, to cite but one other example, attested to Israelite idolatry, namely the worship of Astarte (ibid.: 132).3 But discussions like de Vogüe's remained episodic in the early days of Northwest Semitic glyptic research. lconography and its bearing upon the study of the history of Levantine religions could not, at that time, be a subject of more serious scholarly attention.

As a matter

of fact, the learned world was then chiefly impressed by the continuing progress in understanding the Egyptian hieroglyphs and language and the growing success in deciphering cuneiform. Philology offered com pletely new clues, avenues and horizons to the study of Ancient Near Eastem cultures, and consequently promised, for the first time, perspectives for an adequate understanding of Ancient Near Eastem religion as well. Philology was able to show, for instance, that the symbolical interpretation of Egyptian hieroglyphs, which bad been current in Europe since the Renaissance, was in fact nothing but pure speculation. At the same time, as philology was in con stant move and progress, dies diem docet became a recurring motto of 19th century research on Ancient Near Eastem cultures. Not surprisingly, the early study ofNorthwest Semitic inscribed seals also engaged almost exclusively in matters of philology, even if the number of Northwest Semitic inscriptions remained very limited when compared to the Egyptian records, and did not increase as quickly as the cuneiform docu ments. The state of Ancient Near Eastem studies in general gave more credit to philological than to iconographical research, leaving the latter, based on comparatively mute sources, to archaeologists, art historians and collectors, whose interests were mainl y in realia4 or aesthetical in nature. 5

3. Cf. infra,

p. 278, note 70.

4. See Keel 1992a: 361-369 on the use

of iconography for the illustration of material culture, which rather bypassed Northwest Semitic inscribed seals but concentrated on Egyptian and Assyrian monumental art. Note that the following pages are designed as a summary introduction, and they follow only the main stream of research on Northwest

Semitic inscribed seals along select publications

of major importance for this field in particular. They do not aim at a comprehensive history of research, a task for which one would have to consider in detail numerous studies on individual seals, textbooks on "biblical archaeology", and collections of pictorial sources from the Ancient Near East such as H. Gressmann's "Altorientalische Bilder zum Alten Testament" (21927).

5. As one consequence

of this state of affairs the study of Ancient Near Eastern icon ography has been largely dominated by a pseudo-philological approach which confines itself to mere identification of motifs and figures and tends to interpret pictures exclus ively according to what is known from literary sources.

As a rule, however, pictures on

seals -and elsewhere, even in books! -are not tobe considered simple 'illustrations' to

INIRODUCllON XIII

Elucidating iconography was put on a coming generation's agenda. "Die

Kenntniss

um diese letztere6 steht in der That noch auf der ersten Stufe der Kindheit, und wenn man dies eingesteht, wird man uns gewiss nicht tadeln, bolischen Figuren Levy in the introduction to bis "Siegel und Gemmen" (1869: III).

Tobe sure,

Levy actually considered "Rücksichtnahme

auf die Kunst, Ausschmückung und symbolische Beigaben" to be useful, although never decisive, for the classification of the seals into various ethno-cultural sub-groups (ibid.: 3).7 But, in contrast to bis sometimes bold philological interpretations where he feit clearly more confident, he addressed the subject of iconography only in the most cautious and descriptive terms. The same holds true for the work of Ch. Clermont-Ganneau and M. Lidzbarski, to cite but two leading experts on

Northwest Semitic inscribed seals

of the 19th century. The prime interest of the seals-"ces petits monuments, qui constituent la menue monnaie de l'epi graphie semitique archaique" (Clermont-Ganneau 1883:

123)-was the fact

that they were inscribed. More than half a century later, D. Diringer's corpus of 104 name-seals considered tobe Hebrew (1934: chap. V) still offered no real alternative. lf the descriptions and many of the illustrations published by the af ore mentioned authors remain valuable and necessary references for modern students, their approach to a group of artifacts whose specific significance re sides precisely in the combination of image and inscription, text and picture was clearly one-sided and has to be considered obsolete in this respect.

II. GAlLING 1941: A LANDMARK

With Kurt Galling's 1941 article the study

of Northwest Semitic inscribed seals entered a new era, 8 as it was now recognized at last that a truly archae- texts (cf. Keel 1992b: chapter

1), but may be interpreted in their own right. lt goes

without saying that a 'semantic' and 'syntactical' analysis of iconography is not op posed to, but presupposes the study of material, form, technique, style, etc. 7. As usual at that time, Levy distinguished three: Aramaic, Hebrew, and Phoenician (cf. ibid.: 3f; de Vogüe 1868: 106).

8. Strictly iconographical studies of Northwest Semitic inscribed seals are

as sparse before

1941 as after, and they do not make up a real line of research. However, some outstand

ing studies deserve special mention, such as G. Dalman's 1906 editio princeps of the seal l'l5m< bn gdlyhw with its very sensitive interpretation of the iconography (cf. Sass, infra, p. 232ff with fig. 136), or 1. Benzinger's balanced treatment of seals in the subsequent editions

1927: 223-229).

XIV CHRISTOPH UElillNGER

ological approach to decorated inscribed seals cannot ignore their iconogra phy. Tue latter could prove helpful, if not occasionally indispensable, for the purpose of dating - a necessary prerequisite to any historical work. More im portant, Galling attempted to serialize groups of seals according to their treat ment of selected iconographical motifs (griffin, sphinx, lion, bull, worship pers etc.) and style in order to distinguish workshops and possibly locate the respective areas of their activity. If the sub-title of his study placed all the dec orated seals with Northwest Semitic inscriptions in the general orbit of Phoe nician art,9 bis detailed discussion argued not only for workshops situated along the coast, but recognized others in inner Syria producing "dialectal variants" (ibid.: 170) of Phoenician art, and yet others in Palestine, i.e. Israel (especially at Megiddo and Samaria), Judah, Ammon, Moab, etc. Here he differenciated again between local workshops and privileged factories of Phoenician seal-cutters based in commercial colonies (cf. ibid.: 132-133 with a reference to 1 Kings 20:34).10 This complex picture and the growing recog nition of locally diverse glyptic trends and traditions resulted not only from

Galling's refined analysis

of the often unprovenanced inscribed seals, but also from bis constant reference to excavated stamp seals, fairly numerous by then, that bad been unearthed in the course of half a century of archaeological research in Palestine.11 Galling's work was an important step forward,12 even if it bad its own, deliberately set limits. These are to be understood against the background of the state of research fifty years ago. Aiming at complementary research in the formerly rather neglected area of iconography, Galling kept palaeographic discussions to a minimum. Tue divorce of epigraphy and art history, inherited from preceding generations, was thus not really challenged in bis study. Galling clearly considered a seal's figurative decoration and its inscription as two separate things, the first being of primary importance for locating the area

9. Wherever possible, Galling draws on parallels from cognate artifacts such as decorated

metal bowls, ivories or tridacna shells. Cf. Gubel, infra, pp. 107-108.

10. See already Diringer 1934: 159; and cf. Reifenberg 1950:

11. Lemaire has noted that

the the presence of the seal of pfs (HD 41) at Samaria may be understood in this con text: pt>s is an Egypto-Phoenician name, and the palaeography points to Phoenicia (Lemaire 1980: 496; 1986a: 93-94), while the iconography (a sitting falcon-headed sphinx with sun-disk and debased uraeus) has correlates in Israelite glyptic (Lemaire

1990b: 100-101).

11. See already bis 1937 article on seals for the first edition

of bis "Biblisches Reallexi kon".

12. Reading Galling's

1941 article against the papers of the present volume, written fifty

years later, one is struck by the many insights already formulated there in a necessarily seminal form. Compare Ornan's "preference for the depiction of mortals" (infra, pp.

52-73) with Galling's comment on the rarity

of representations of gods or goddesses (1941: 168).

INlRODUCTION XV

of manufacture.13 Moreover, Galling chose not to enter into the discussion of the possible religious significance of the seals' iconography because he wanted bis approach to remain strictly archaeological.14 Tbis restraint was based on methodological considerations -it should not be interpreted in terms of the author' s indifference or reluctance in principle to touch upon the field of religion and belief.15 Even in bis 1941 article, Galling marginally addressed the question of the religious meaning of specific motifs: Where a bull is represented on a seal, "wird man kaum an eine einfach natura listische Wiedergabe zu denken haben. Das Tier stellt symbolisch die über menschliche Kraft dar", auf die vis natu rae vorliegen" (ibid.: 138, 168). Galling considered the representation ofvari ous hybrid creatures ("Mischwesen") such as the griffin and the sphinx, the winged scarab, uraeus, and genii the most conspicuous and characteristic feature of "Phoenician" glyptic: "Man wird in diesen Mischwesen gute oder For the reasons mentioned, however, Galling limited himself to such cautious comments and did not explore further the significance of the iconic designs for the bistory of Syro-Palestinian religions of Iron Age II. III. THE DECADE AFIBR GALLING: LIMITED, BUT PROMISING RESPONSE Galling's excellent article has been rightly acknowledged as a most com petent and authoritative contribution to the study of Northwest Semitic in scribed seals. Curiously, however, it does not seem to have stimulated much

13. H. Weippert's observation; note already Galling 1928: 236. Cf. below, p. xx and note

44.

14. This limitation becomes more apparent wben Galling's article is compared witb tbe al

most contemporary, very influential work on cylinder seals by H. Frankfort (1939). Most obviously, very different presuppositions on wbat arcbaeology -or, for tbat matter, iconograpby -can or cannot, sbould or sbould not do, are at work in Gal ling's, Frankfort's or Moortgat's catalogues (on tbe latter, see briefly below).

15. Note for instance tbe inclusion of decorated seals in bis treatments of representations

of goddesses (1937a, 1977).

16. Cf. Ornan, infra, p. 63; Sass, pp. 221-222.

17. Cf. Hübner, infra, pp. 136-138; Sass, p. 225.

18. Cf. Ornan, infra, p. 63; Bordreuil, pp. 77, fig. 6, and 97, fig. 36; Hübner, pp. 138 and

159, fig. 21; Timm, pp. 170 and 192, fig. 6.

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