The Shema Seal is an ancient Jasper seal that dates back to the 8th century BCE and mentions the King of ancient Israel, Jeroboam.[1][2][3]
| Shema Seal | |
|---|---|
 Postage stamp depicting the Shema Seal | |
| Material | (Original) Jasper (Bulla) Clay |
| Writing | Paleo Hebrew |
| Created | 8th century BCE |
| Discovered | (Original) 1904, Megiddo, Israel (Bulla) bought from a Bedouin market in 1980 |
| Present location | (Original) unknown (Bulla) Rockefeller Museum, Jerusalem |
Discovery
Archaeologist Gottlieb Schumacher and his team began excavating at Megiddo and found the seal during a three-year excavation program.[4] The seal was discovered in 1904, in an excavation dump. The layers in which it was found were dated to the eighth century BCE.[5][6] Schumacher send the original seal to Istanbul but it never returned.[7] Its current location is unknown. A bronze cast made before it was sent away.[8][9]
Bulla
In the 1980s Yigal Ronen, a nuclear engineer and amateur antiquities collector from the Ben Gurion university, visited the Bedouin market in Be'er Sheva.[10] He was offered a tiny clay lump stamped with the image of a roaring lion and ancient Hebrew writing. Ronen bought it for 10 Shekels, even though suspecting it to be a forgery.[11][12]
It turned out to be authentical.[13] It is not the original Meggido seal, but features the same images and dates from the same period as the original.[14][15][16]
Text
“Belonging to Shema (שמע)[17] the servant of Jeroboam.”[18][19]
Hebrew to English translation:
‘Ishm’ ‘bdyrbm’[1]