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December 21, 2006

The Seal Women of Authority in Ancient Times

The other day I mentioned an ancient seal that belonged to one yhwhħn, a woman. In that post, I indicated that seals belonging to women were quite rare. You may remember that that seal, from Mamillah, Jerusalem tomb 52, reads, "Belonging to yhwhħn, daughter of pq‛t (again using ħ for het)." This seal follows a common pattern of many such seals, the preposition l meaning "belonging to" + a personal name + bn or bt (son or daughter) + father's personal name. With regard to form, there is nothing exceptional about this seal. However, I ran across a couple of other seals belonging to women that are interesting because they use words other than "daughter of" to identify the owner of the seal in addition to her name.

The seal impression on the left is presumably from somewhere in Judah. It is in Hebrew and dates from around the 6th century BCE. It reads, l ’dt’ ašt pšħr, "belonging to Adata, wife of Pashhur." The red portion of the tracing is a reconstruction but there can be little doubt. The seal further identifies Adata in terms of her husband rather than her father. I don't know how frequent this type of designation is but the very fact that she has a seal indicates that she has some standing in her husband's activities and perhaps in her own right. At a minimum, she had her husband's "power of attorney." She may not have been a liberated women but she was a women of importance in her community. A quick look at Hebrew names left me unable to find a parallel to her name. Her husband's name, or something like her husband's name, pšħwr, is well attested in the Hebrew Bible [Jeremiah 20:1,2,3,5,6 (priest, son of Immer); 21:1 (son of Malchiah); 38:1 (son of Malchiah, father of Gedaliah but they are not the same person); Nehemiah 11:12 (son of Malchiah, father of Zechariah); I Chronicles 9:12 (son of Malcijah); Nehemiah 10:4 (Nehemiah 10:3 in most translations, just Pashhur); Ezra 2:38=Nehemiah 7:41 (number of descendants of Pashhur); Ezra 10:22 (names of the descendants of Pashhur)]. Two and perhaps three or more members of the priesthood have this name and there is no way of telling if Adata was the wife of any of them. My tracing of the seal impression is from a photograph published by Reifenberg, 38, # 24.

I made this second seal impression tracing from Reifenberg's, 43, # 36, photograph. This seal is also likely a 6th century BCE seal but this one comes from Transjordan perhaps from the general vicinity of Amman. While the first seal impression shows the Hebrew writing style, this one is more Aramaic is style. It reads, l ‛nmut amt dblbs, "belonging to Anamut, the handservant of Dabilabaz." Reifenbert reads l ‛nmut amt rblbs, but I think Jackson, 81, and Vattioni, 371, are correct in reading d rather than r. Jackson, 82, suggests that the name Anamut is early Arabic in origin. While it is possible that amt dblbs means "mistress (or concubine) of Dabilabaz," I think it far more likely that amt (construct of amh) should be understood in the same way as ‛bd (male servant) is understood on those far more numerous seals where the servant is a man. In these cases, ‛bd means "senior staff member" or even representative. Sure, they could also be a slave but that is not a necessary condition for being a ‛bd in this sense. Under this interpretation, both the amh and the ‛bd had some "power of attorney" to act on behalf of their master. So it is probable that Anamut was a professional woman with considerable responsibility. There is at least one other seal bearing a woman's name and amt. Jackson, 80, has a transcription of it. Jackson hints that this woman, ’lyh, may also have an Arabic name.

[Note: seals are a long ways from my expertise, if I have one, so I caution my readers to be particularly cautious with a post like this one. Among other things, I have not looked at any significant secondary material beyond what is in the reference list below for drafting this post. And I am sure there is some.]

References:

Posted by Duane Smith at December 21, 2006 1:37 PM | Read more on Archaeology |

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