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This spoon from Hazor has a wide handle intricately incised on its front with a sequence of palmettes curving upward instead of the more common downward-turning volutes. The spoon’s use is unclear. It…
This piece from Samaria shows lotus shoots sprouting from the base of each palmette, with alternating open and closed blossoms. The repetition of the images is characteristic of the art of this period…
Rosettes like the one on this piece from Samaria were common floral decorative motifs in ancient Near Eastern art.
This ritual scene was carved twice on a cylindrical ivory box from Hazor, about 2.7 inches high and 2.2 inches in diameter (7 × 6 cm). A kneeling man raises his hands in prayer toward a stylized tree…
This is the earliest known Jewish coin. It may have been minted in Philistia for the province of Yehud, before Yehud began to mint its own coins. The front depicts the head of a gorgon, a Greek…
On the front is a lily, commonly found on Yehud coins. On the back is a bird that most ornithologists consider to be a falcon; there is no consensus on its symbolism. With wings spread, this falcon…
This leaf-shaped ivory relief from Samaria depicts Horus as a child sitting on a lotus flower. The lotus was a symbol of regeneration, and because, in Egyptian belief, each pharaoh was considered an…
This small sculpture of a pomegranate with a bird (most likely a dove) sitting on top is from the City of David in Jerusalem. The sculpture was probably mounted on a piece of furniture (fragments of…
Many of the seal impressions, with the inscription lamelekh “(Belonging, or pertaining) to the king,” followed by the name of a city, feature a two-winged figure, probably a winged sun disk…
This and the next several ivories come from the approximately twelve thousand ivory pieces and fragments that were found in the royal compound in the city of Samaria, capital of the Northern Kingdom…
