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Studies of Women’s Seals in Ancient Israel

MiYoung Im 1

1서울신학대

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Although there are 41 known seals of women in Hebrew, Ammonite, Aramaic and Edomite, with additional five seal impressions in Hebrew, all of which are mostly dated to the 8-6th centuries BCE, these have been largely ignored by scholarship except in the context of larger epigraphic and iconographic studies. Women's seals are categorized to four types based on indication following their names; according to her father “X daughter (bt) of Y” including Y as the king, her husband “X wife (’št) of Y,” “X maidservant (’mt) of Y,” or just a personal name itself. This article reviews these seals by examining how they were used by their owners. Because of the Bible’s focus on male leadership and dominance characteristic of its time, very little is revealed about the status of women. Fortunately, these epigraphic sources shed light on certain aspects of the women’s role in society, highlighting that at least certain women had sufficient legal rights to have the necessary authority to sign official documents with their own personal seals as the men did in the Old Testament period. It would appear, therefore, that they enjoyed higher social positions in society than what can otherwise be deduced from the Bible. However, one may still ask why we have minor number of women's seals in comparison with men's. Indeed, the percentage of women’s seals discovered is about 5%. The answer can be suggested by the famous Wilbour Papyrus dating to the 4th year of Ramses V (ca. 1145 B.C.E.). This document gives us only 131 women who were the owners of the lands in the tax list of fields. This number is only 10.8% of the land owners in this list. It is well known that Egyptian women held better legal rights than Israel during the Old Testament period. Even contemporary societies where we think that women have better conditions to work than ancient times, the percentage holding administrative position in modern times is quite similar. Thus, the number of seals can not be questionable.

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