The lmlk storage jars
A kingdom-wide store of stamped royal jars, concentrated in the year Sennacherib invaded.
Confirmed by the groundObjectlate 8th century BC
More than two thousand jar handles stamped lmlk — "belonging to the king" — with a winged sun or scarab and one of four city names. They cluster in the destruction layers of 701 BC and read as a state provisioning programme, of the kind Chronicles describes Hezekiah organising before the Assyrians came.
lmlk — "belonging to the king" — with Hebron, Ziph, Socoh or mmšt beneath.
- Found
- Across Judah — Lachish, Jerusalem, Ramat Rahel and dozens of sites — Many excavations since the nineteenth century
- Now held at
- Israel Antiquities Authority and museums worldwide
- Language
- Hebrew
- How it reached us
- Dug up, or still standing where it was built.
What it shows
The stamps name no king. The link to Hezekiah's preparations rests on their date and distribution, which is the mainstream reading.
How historians use it
One of the most studied artefact classes in Levantine archaeology, used to date late-eighth-century strata.
In Scripture
Connects to
Sources
- Vaughn, Theology, History, and Archaeology in the Chronicler's Account of Hezekiah (1999)
These summaries are written in English for now. Translations follow.