December
11
/ 2020
A professor who bought a 2,300-year-old Iron Age royal seal, only paid a handful of shekels for something beyond value. About forty years ago Professor Yigal Ronen from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) was strolling through the Bedouin market in Beersheba, a biblical town in southern Israel, now a city and the main center of the Negev region. Ronen came across a tiny oval seal and when he inspected it closer he found a tiny imprinted roaring lion standing on all four legs, which indicated that it was a royal seal. The market trader was unsure as to the origin of the artifact, that measures only 23.4 millimeters (1 inch) by 19.3 mm (0.75 inch), and the professor
