Seal of the Maadana

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NIS half-shekel with motif (Kinnor) from the seal of the Maadana

The seal of the Maadana is an artifact that is now believed to be a modern fake by various researchers.

The string instrument depicted on it was often associated with the harp of the biblical King David, which led to the great popularity of the seal and its use in 1985 as a template for the design of the modern half-shekel coin.

The provenance of the piece is unknown; allegedly it was found in Jerusalem. It was founded by Nahman Avigad in the 7th century BC. Dated. According to the inscription, Maadana was the daughter of a king who, according to the location, resided in Jerusalem, i.e. was a person in the Bible , and apart from the oval shape of the imprint, this stamp seal is unique in every respect.

Museum-like presentation and doubts about authenticity

Reuben Hecht , a collector from Haifa, bought it at the antique market and, after it had been authenticated by Nahman Avigad, donated it to the Israel Museum in 1980.

Until 1993 the seal of the Maadana was an outstanding piece of the archaeological exhibition (inventory number IMJ 80.16.57) and was then stored in a magazine. The Israel Museum responded to a critical article published on July 23, 1993 in the Jerusalem local newspaper Iton Yerushalaim.

The Maadana seal has been presented to the public again since autumn 2015, but in the Hecht Museum Haifa. The museum provides the following information: "About thirty years ago, researchers from various disciplines began to question the authenticity of the seal."

description

The artifact is excellently made and perfectly preserved, consists of brown jasper , has a scarab shape and the dimensions 1.3 cm × 1 cm × 0.6 cm. It is also pierced lengthways.

motive

The motif takes up the upper half of the oval embossing plate. It consists of a stringed instrument (possibly a kinnor ) of the asymmetrical type: from a body decorated with a rosette, the edge of which is also decorated with a series of dots, two unequal long, elegantly curved arms extend out, which are connected by a transverse wood. The kinnor is strung with twelve strings.

The representation is an unusual combination of attention to detail (twelve strings, rosette, points) and abstraction (strings end above the sound box, construction of the instrument). It is difficult to decide whether the front or the rear of the instrument was shown.

inscription

The two-line paleo - Hebrew inscription reads: למעדנה בת המלך “Maadana [belonging], the daughter of the king.” Maadana would thus be the daughter of a king of Judah , who remains anonymous . The motif of the rosette suggests perhaps King Joschiah or one of his successors.

That a princess had her own seal was singular; Also unusual, but appealing, was Avigad's assumption that Maadana chose a musical instrument as her motif because she played it herself.

The name Maadana is otherwise not attested, but it is rooted in relation to the popular Israeli women's names Edna and Adina . The root עדן 'dn , from which z. B. also the name of paradise, Garden of Eden , is derived, means "to be a delight". "Etymologically, it is probably based on a common-west Semitic basis Grunde dn , which combines with the aspects of opulence and well-being."

reception

In 1985, the Israeli Central Bank replaced the national currency, the shekel, with the New Israeli Shekel (NIS) due to high inflation . The stringed instrument on the Maadana seal was chosen as the motif for the obverse of the new half-shekel coins. Nathan Karp created the design; The issue date was September 4, 1985.

The authentic form of the Kinnor is shown in a relief from Nineveh : In 701 BC, residents of the Judean city of Lachish were born . In the deportation and have to play on the Kinnor ( British Museum )

Doubts as to its authenticity

Bathja Bayer, musicologist at the Hebrew University and an expert on ancient musical instruments, questioned the authenticity of the seal immediately after it became known through Avigad's publication in 1978:

  • The construction of the instrument is unstable.
  • Flavius ​​Josephus wrote that the stringed instrument νάβλα, nábla (in German: Nevel ) had twelve strings. But Josephus lived seven centuries after Maadana, and twelve-string instruments are not known from the time of Maadana (or earlier).
  • The representation of a musical instrument without a person making music is for the 7th century BC. Also singular. Musical instruments as independent motifs have only been known since the Hellenistic period.
  • That a king's daughter identified herself as a musician is anachronistic.

Nahman Avigad did not respond to Bayer's inquiries, and since the Israeli central bank, relying on Avigad's expertise, minted coins with the motif of the Maadana-Kinnor in large numbers, Bathja Bayer seemed better to postpone her criticism.

Joachim Braun added the following observations:

  • Asymmetrical lyres with a rounded body are not known, apart from the Maadana seal;
  • The central decorative motif of the rosette has only been documented in this form since the Middle Ages;
  • The twelve strings were obviously important to the engraver, but he allows some of them to protrude over the crossbar, the shortest is attached to the arm of the instrument, and the strings fill the entire space between the two arms.
  • "The seal imprint shows ... an instrument that contradicts contemporary playing practices: holding the instrument with the left, plucking with the right, while the short arm of the instrument is turned towards the player for a vertical position and the upper side for a horizontal position."

Braun therefore considered it necessary to "recheck the authenticity of this lyre representation."

Christopher A. Rollston examined numerous Iron Age seals and the Maadana seal under the microscope and found that the engraving technique and the instrument used for engraving differed significantly in the case of the Maadana seal. He therefore judged it to be a modern fake.

Conclusion

Since the dealer from whom Reuven Hecht acquired the Maadana seal can no longer be identified, it cannot be traced back to a forgery workshop. But concerns about the authenticity have grown and led to a move away from this seal in the specialist literature, so that it is not used by Jeremy Montagu, for example, for the reconstruction of the Iron Age musical instrument Kinnor: “One of the best-known images of the ancient Israelite lyre is the one on the current half-shekel coin of Israel, but the source of this illustration ... is of very dubious authenticity. An older Israeli coin from around 1970 copies a much more believable kinnor, the source of which is a bar Kochba coin from around AD 130. "

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Yossi Maurey, Amir S. Fink: Putting the Seal on Ma'adana: A Case of Forgery and its Ramifications . S. 256 .
  2. ^ Nahman Avigad: The King's Daughter and the Lyre . S. 151 .
  3. ^ Nahman Avigad: The King's Daughter and the Lyre . S. 146 .
  4. ^ Yossi Maurey, Amir S. Fink: Putting the Seal on Ma'adana: A Case of Forgery and its Ramifications . S. 257-258 .
  5. ^ Yossi Maurey, Amir S. Fink: Putting the Seal on Ma'adana: A Case of Forgery and its Ramifications . S. 258 .
  6. ^ Hennie J. Marsman: Women in Ugarit and Israel: Their Social and Religious Position in the Context of the Ancient Near East . Brill, Leiden 2003, p. 645 .
  7. ^ Nahman Avigad: The King's Daughter and the Lyre . S. 151 .
  8. ^ Henrik Pfeiffer: Eden. Retrieved April 28, 2018 .
  9. ^ Current Notes and Coins. In: Bank of Israel. Retrieved April 28, 2018 .
  10. ^ Thomas Staubli: Music in Biblical Times . Ed .: Bible + Orient Museum. Friborg 2007, p. 20 .
  11. ^ Yossi Maurey, Amir S. Fink: Putting the Seal on Ma'adana: A Case of Forgery and its Ramifications . S. 259 .
  12. ↑ a b c Joachim Braun: The music culture of old Israel / Palestine . S. 129 .
  13. ↑ Christopher A. Rollston: Epigraphic Forgeries . S. 87 .
  14. ↑ Jeremy Montagu: Musical Instruments of the Bible . London 2002, p. 14 .