2,000-year-old gem seal depicting Greek god Apollo found under City of David
Although Apollo is an Olympian deity of the Greek and Roman cultures, it is highly probable that the person wearing the ring with Apollo’s portrait was a Jew.
Researchers discovered a gem seal featuring a portrait of Apollo in
the drainage channel of the City of David late last month. It was found
in archaeological soil that was removed from the foundations of the
Western Wall during work on the Archaeological Sifting Project in the
Tzurim Valley National Park.
The
excavations were carried out under the auspices of the City of David
and the Nature and Parks Authority. The gem features an engraved portrait of the god Apollo.
According to researchers, this surprising and rare find is only the
third secured gem sealing (intaglio) from the Second Temple period to
have ever been discovered in Jerusalem.
The gem is cut from dark brown jasper, and has remnants of light
yellow, brown, and white layers. In antiquity, jasper was considered a
precious stone. The gem sealing was embedded in a ring, and it dates
from the first century CE (Second Temple period).
The
gem is tiny. It is oval-shaped, 13 mm long, 11 mm wide and 3 mm thick.
Because the gem is an intaglio – having a design carved into the upper
side of the stone – its main function was a seal to be stamped on soft
material, usually beeswax, for use as a personal signature on contracts,
letters, wills, goods and bundles of money.
The intaglio features an engraving of Apollo’s head in profile to the left, with long hair flowing over a wide, pillar-like neck, large nose, thick lips and small, prominent chin. The hair is styled in a series of parallel lines directed to the apex, and surrounded by a braid above the forehead. One line of hair marks a strand that covers the ear; long curls flow over part of the neck, reaching the left shoulder. Thin diagonal lines at the base of the head mark the upper end of the garment and the body.
According
to the researchers – archaeologist Eli Shukron, Prof. Shua
Amorai-Stark, and senior archaeologist Malka Hershkovitz – although
Apollo is an Olympian deity of the Greek and Roman cultures, it is highly probable that the person wearing the ring with Apollo’s portrait was a Jew.
SHUKRON,
who conducted the excavation in which the gem was found, said that “it
is rare to find seal remains bearing the image of the god Apollo at
sites identified with the Jewish population. To this day, two such gem
[seals] have been found in Masada, another in Jerusalem inside an
ossuary [burial box] in a Jewish tomb on Mount Scopus, and the current
gem that was discovered in close proximity to the Temple Mount.
"When we found the gem, we asked ourselves: ‘What is Apollo doing in Jerusalem? And why would a Jew wear a ring with the portrait of a foreign god?’ The answer to this, in our opinion, lies in the fact that the owner of the ring did so not as a ritual act that expresses religious belief, but as a means of making use of the impact that Apollo’s figure represents: light, purity, health and success.”
A Gem Seal Bearing the Portrait of Apollo, City of David, October 29, 2020
Amorai-Stark, a researcher of engraved gems, added: “At the end of
the Second Temple period, the sun god Apollo was one of the most popular
and revered deities in Eastern Mediterranean regions. Apollo was a god
of manifold functions, meanings and epithets. Among Apollo’s spheres of
responsibility, it is likely that association with sun and light – as
well as with logic, reason, prophecy and healing – fascinated some Jews,
given that the element of light versus darkness was prominently present
in the Jewish worldview in those days.
"The fact that the craftsman of this gem left the yellow-golden and light brown layers on the god’s hair probably indicates a desire to emphasize the aspect of light in the god’s persona, as well as in the aura that surrounded his head," the professor said. "The choice of a dark stone with yellow coloring of hair suggests that the creator or owner of this intaglio sought to emphasize the dichotomous aspect of light and darkness and/or their connectedness.”
The
Archaeological Sifting Project at Tzurim Valley National Park,
sponsored by the City of David and the Nature and National Parks
Authority, is a large-scale archeological project that offers the public
an opportunity to experience and appreciate archaeological activity
without the need for advanced training or specialized knowledge.
The sifting has been supervised closely by archaeologists, and it allows participants to become “archaeologists for a day,” as they process archeological material unearthed in City of David excavations, where they often find treasures from the far past. The findings discovered thus far in the project include an imprint of King Hezekiah, coins from different periods, arrowheads and jewelry. Due to the current nationwide closure of tourist sites, this site too is closed, but it will be reopened to the public as soon as conditions permit.
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