An unusual artifact unearthed at a site in central Israel is offering researchers an unexpected look at far-reaching trade networks, religious traditions, and cultural change that rocked the ancient Near East.
The tiny relic, uncovered at the ancient settlement of Tel Hadid, is nearly 2,700 years old. Archaeologists have identified it as a stamp seal—a common object from this region and period, although upon closer inspection, what it reveals is something more complex than others of its kind.
“The object is remarkable for its material,” writes Tel Aviv University archaeologist Ido Koch and colleagues in a recent paper published in the journal Levant that describes the object. Crafted from mother-of-pearl, the researchers say this stamp seal is quite unlike any other and represents “a medium hitherto undocumented in the southern Levantine stamp seal corpus.”
Normally, stamp seals were made from durable stone during the Iron Age. What prompted the ancient creator of the recovery from Tel Hadid to use a pearl oyster instead remains perplexing, since this brittle material is so delicate that Koch and his colleagues say engraving it would have been extraordinarily difficult using Iron Age tools.
In short, crafting such an artifact from mother-of-pearl using known techniques available to artisans in the Near East nearly 2,700 years ago should have been impossible.
So why did its ancient creator choose to undertake such a demanding task in the first place?
Discovery at Tel Hadid
The Tel Hadid site, also known as al-Haditha, is an archaeological site in the Ben Shemen Forest in central Israel found between present-day Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The site overlooks the country’s coastal plain, and 2,700 years ago, its position also would have held strategic importance.
It was there in 2019 that archaeologists uncovered the stamp seal during excavations led by Koch and his team, which they say belonged to Pinctada margaritifera, a species of pearl oyster native to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. This identification was significant, since it means the raw material traveled hundreds of miles before ultimately reaching the settlement.
Based on its origins and the craftsmanship that obviously went into its creation, Koch and his colleagues believe the unusual artifact reflects the profound changes that followed the Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel during the late eighth century B.C.E. At the time, populations that had fallen under Assyrian rule were frequently moved to different locations within the empire, resulting in communities that blended cultures normally only connected by expansive trade routes stretching from Mesopotamia to Arabia and beyond.
The stamp seal appears to reflect these far-reaching connections, since the mother-of-pearl is believed to have been carried by one of the many deported families among their valuables. However, it is also possible that the artifact was imported through the flourishing commercial networks that emerged through the rise of the Assyrian Empire.
A Story in Pictures
However, Koch and his colleagues say the engraved design may also provide clues to the artifact’s origins. Instead of depicting imagery with roots among the Israelites, it depicts a crescent moon mounted on a triangular standard—a human figure is also present, raising its arms in apparent worship.
This imagery is associated with the Mesopotamian moon god Sin, whose worshipers spread quietly amidst Assyria’s western provinces. Apart from the imagery it depicts, the shallow nature of the engraving—perhaps a requirement for working with such delicate material—also suggests that instead of functioning as a practical stamping seal, the object may have been worn as an amulet due to its religious significance.
Altogether, the combination of an exotic and unlikely material for the creation of such an item, along with its foreign religious imagery, and the care that went into its creation, all reveal clues that point to multiculturalism within communities under ancient Assyrian rule.
“The seal thus demonstrates how a recognized colonial motif was materially articulated within a western Assyrian provincial context,” Koch and his colleagues write, “while also providing a rare opportunity to examine the practices and constraints of seal engraving on [mother of pearl].”
The team’s study, “A unique mother-of-pearl stamp seal from Late Iron Age Tel Ḥadid, Israel,” was published in Levant.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.