page_title: LMLK seal
section_title: Theories
hierarchical_section_title: LMLK seal / Theories
caption_attribution_description: English: Storage jar with "LMLK seal" = "belonging to the king, Hebron" (Lakish, late 8th BCE). Israel Museum, Jerusalem
context_page_description: LMLK seals are ancient Hebrew seals stamped on the handles of large storage jars first issued in the reign of King Hezekiah and discovered mostly in and around Jerusalem. Several complete jars were found in situ buried under a destruction layer caused by Sennacherib at Lachish. While none of the original seals have been found, some 2,000 impressions made by at least 21 seal types have been published. The iconography of the two and four winged symbols are representative of royal symbols whose meaning "was tailored in each kingdom to the local religion and ideology".
context_section_description: Beginning with the editio princeps by Charles Warren in 1870, a diverse assortment of theories has been promulgated to explain their function. Since the landmark excavations at Lachish by David Ussishkin during the 1970s, which established the date of the seals to the reign of Hezekiah, the number of feasible explanations has narrowed down to these (all associated with Hezekiah ):
  Military rations collected as an emergency during a short period (several months to a few years at most) preceding the Assyrian invasion by Sennacherib
  Government taxes collected throughout the majority of Hezekiah's reign (either 14 or 26 years depending on chronological interpretations) as a long-term economic buildup until the Assyrian invasion by Sennacherib
  Religious tithes collected throughout Hezekiah's 29-year reign in response to his worship reformation following his accession (completely irrespective of the Assyrian invasion by Sennacherib)
  In support of the first two theories are the inscriptions, which can be read as the names of four places; in support of the third theory are the geographic statistics, which do not associate any of the four words to a particular place or region other than the entire southern kingdom of Judah. Furthermore, approximately 10–20 percent of the excavated jars and jar handles were stamped.
  Depending on which of the above theories are preferred, several other aspects of the operation need interpretation:
  The people who performed the stamping were either government officials working directly for King Hezekiah or Levites and/or priests associated with Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem.
  The icons symbolize either royal stature or a religious nature (Deuteronomy 32:11–12, Ruth 2:12, Psalm 36:7, Psalm 57:1, Psalm 61:4, Psalm 91:4, and Malachi 4:2).
  The super-inscription, LMLK, denotes the Judean government or a specific, divine being (consider its application to the Israelite YHWH as in Psalm 10:16, Isaiah 6:5, and Zechariah 14:9).
  The sub-inscriptions (Hebron, MMST, Socoh, and Ziph) record either 4 places or 4 votive statements.
  Engraving styles indicate at least two, possibly five, people made the seals. The 21 types can be grouped together in five or six sets, but they may have been created or utilized in pairs based on quantities of their impressions found so far and internal evidence such as inconsistent use of divider dots.
  Researchers frequently use a lowercase "x" as a wildcard character when referring to a series such as x4C instead of using an uppercase "G", "H", "M", "S", or "Z" for the first letter designator. Likewise, an "x" can be used for the second letter designator when referring to all seals with the same word, such as H2x in lieu of H2D, H2T, and H2U.
  Thus far, significant quantities of x4C, x4L, and x2U stamps have been excavated from below the destruction layer caused by the Assyrian conquest of Sennacherib, but only a single specimen each of the G2T and M2D stamps (excavated from Jerusalem, which was not destroyed by Sennacherib). This suggests that 12 of the 21 seals were made prior to the attack, and the remaining 9 afterwards.  The first significant evidence to support this datum came from the landmark excavations at Timnah led by George L. Kelm and Amihai Mazar.
caption: LMLK jar on display, Israel Museum
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