Indigenous in Jerusalem [View all]

[shira]

Slowly, the Land of Israel is revealing to the people of Israel the secrets that have been buried deep in its soil for thousands of years.


The discovery of Hezekiah’s royal seal impression in the Ophel excavations “vividly brings to life the Biblical narratives about King Hezekiah, and the activity conducted during his lifetime in Jerusalem’s Royal Quarter,” says the Hebrew University.

It’s much more than that! The unearthing and deciphering of the 2,700-year-old bulla in excavations by the Temple Mount is proof-positive of the Jewish people’s deep roots in Jerusalem. It is reaffirmation of entrenched Jewish rights in Jerusalem. This is doubly important at a time when some academics and archeologists deny the veracity of the Biblical narrative of ancient Israel, and many Palestinians assert that the Jewish people have no history and no national rights in Jerusalem.

Consider: Everybody from UNESCO, to the Palestinians, to the hard Left, and Biblically- skeptical archeologists at Tel Aviv University, have objected to the two-decade-long excavations of the Ophel and Jerusalem’s City of David, the lower slope of the Temple Mount. Through great adversity and persistence, Prof. Eilat Mazar and her Israel Antiquities Authority and Hebrew University colleagues have unearthed some of the earliest known artifacts in the city, dating as far back as the 12th and 11th centuries BCE. These include evidence supporting the historicity of the biblical kings David and Solomon, founders of the Judean dynasty.

...And now, the bulla bearing the name of King Hezekiah (727–698 BCE) – a discovery that was made six years ago but only interpreted recently and announced this past week. It is the first time that a seal impression of an Israelite or Judean king has ever come to light in a scientific archeological excavation in Israel. This is “the closest that we can get to something that was most likely held by King Hezekiah himself,” says Mazar.

The bulla was discovered in a refuse dump adjacent to a government or royal building that was apparently constructed in the 10th century BCE – the time of King Solomon! Mazar’s latest discovery reminds us of other important archeological finds that highlight Jewish rootedness in the Land of Israel.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Indigenous-in-Jerusalem-436266