Dear prof. Shea

I feel with you that the hmlk jars is as were found by the Israeli ceramic analysts, to be 701 or in (SDA) 686  BCE time zone.

I do not know if you have received the three seal discussions  from El Umeiri that I sent a few days ago?

The seal of El-amas (so Herr) or El-amar(?)  has a ram motif. He is linked to Temakel in a bird motif as his  son or his slave?

That brings  Temakel and El-amas into the same overlapping zone. The El-amas seal has a ram motif  similar (in fact the closest iconographical resemblance) to the rams that were worn by  Shebitko in his  ears as earrings and by two accessories hanging on a string from the neck of Tirhaka. They are almost  identical to the seal motif of El-amas.

If El-amas was ruler in the time of Tirhaka, especially his conquest period of 674-671 BCE,  then one can  place Temakel a bit earlier. That ties up again with Moabite and other seals.

Puduil in the Assyrian sources, Taylor Prism, definitely connected to 701 mentioned in Taylor Prism of  691 BCE and also in Esarhaddon Prisms  A2 of 678/77 BCE, has a seal saying  Beyadil was his servant.  Another seal says that Temakel was the father of Beyadil.

Thus, Temakel predates 701 BCE or overlapping it. It appears he had two sons, Beyadil and also El- Amas/r?

So seal-wise, Temakel is placed in that chronological zone but also iconographically (art on El-Amas seal  corresponding to the necklace of Tirhaka).

It brings some adjustments to the view of F. M. Cross that places the Ostracon from Heshbon Ostracon 4 , which is mentioning the name of Temakel, to be in 500 BCE.

I have thought in my analysis that Temakel was not an Ammonite but a Moabite and the mentioning of the  "men of Gubla" or  Byblos, has to do with things the Moabite and Phoenicians did near Heshbon or from  Heshbon. Since the seals of El-amas were discovered at El Umeiri, it was my thought that maybe Temakel  and his son or servant were residing at Umeiri?

Main point is that despite Crosses analysis of the orthographical dating of the Hesbon Ostracon A4 to be in 500  BCE, we may want to consider moving it closer to the time of the Third campaign of  Sennacherib (701 BCE) until the  time of Tirhaka 671 BCE.

The motif of the Baalyasha or Milkom-ur seal correlates also with the  Hezekiah LMLK jarhandle motifs,  thus I would feel that Baalyasha dates not to the Baalish of Jeremiah, (the Umeiri seal). but to another individual  that predates 701 BCE.

The seal of Temakel servant of Milkom may give us a hint that Milkom  (Ammonite) and Temakel  (Moabite) were contemporaries and that  Baalyasha (Phoenician) was a predecessor of  Milkom.

Baalyasha (Phoenician) and the Moabite  Palati may have been contemporaries. I took it also that Palati  is related to PUL or Tiglath-Pilezer III? He may have took on the official name during three times of  intervention in Palestine by PUL (my 745, 743 [Thiele], 741 [Shea] or 738 [another Israeli)  or 733/2 and  again in 727 BCE).

If one says that 727 BCE is a consideration for Pilati to adopt or have his name that way, then he was the  father of Temakel (Sargonic period) who had a son  Beyadil in Sennacherib's time who was the servant of  Puduil, the Ammonite King in 701, so recognized in 691 but downgraded in 678/77 on Esarhaddon's   Prism A2 as just an overseer (MAN shar4).

Another seal says that Maasha was the father of Pilati and that places Maasha in the time of Menahem the  king of Israel (who ruled 10 years according to my own chronological assessments), between 755-745  BCE. The father of Maasha, according to another seal, was  mnh, which may be an abbreviated form  trying to simulate Menahem of Samaria (Israel).

The seals seems to indicate that seal-nomen were chosen according to the cultural affinity that will be to the  symbolic (both political, religious and economical) advantage of the inhabitants of a locality. That means,  if Jeroboam II is an Israeli Imperialist,  and Hebrew culture is spread widely in his time and later, then mnh  will be on a Transjordanian Seal as the father of Maasha. Maasha son's name will be plt because of the  Assyrian imperialism of PUL, and plt's son was chosen to be Temakel, a misform of Milkom due to the  Ammonite superiority in the Sargonic period and early Sennacherib period.

Due to  Hezekiah's imperialism or strength, Temakel switched the name of his Moabite son Beyadil to  respresent Hezekiah and Isaiah's  theology "in the hand of God" thus Beyadil.

The strong Egyptian influence on El-Amas seal (Tirhaka and his predecessor's earring and necklace art)  may demonstrate that his father, Temakel chose the seal name of El-Amas for his son with the theophoric element in the beginning (as opposed to Beyad-il at the end) because the Egyptians put their divine  element "god" just like the Assyrians in front of the word, not in the back e.g.  ntr(god)_________. The Assyrians also write it in the original in the front DINGIR(god)________. It was thus more expedient for their time to  have the chief with a element or linguistic signifier of god in front.

We know from the Assyrian sources of Esarhaddon in the year 671 BCE when he came against Tirhaka again, that Esarhaddon dealt with the ruler of Tyre who had the name Baal. In Prism A column I  Esarhaddon said that he came against Baal because he trusted in the king of Kush and followed Tirhaka.  (thus between 674-671 BCE) (Wallace Flemming, The History of Tyre   1915: 39).

I wonder if the "Temakel" and "men of Gubla" of the Hesbon Ostracon A4 should not be related to this  event? This would cluster all the iconography, nomen, seals and history to harmonize better?

The Heshbon Ostracon A3 gives us a good idea of the name with the fathers having their theophoric  element at the end instead of in the front like the sons.

TEMAK-el (father)---- BEYAD-el (son) - el-AMAS (second son)  (674-671 BCE)

MELEK-el (father)------------------------------el-EZER (son) (674-671 BCE (Heshbon Ostracon A3 line 4)

BRQ (father)--------------------------------------el-NADAB (son) 674-671 BCE) (Heshbon Ostracon A3 line 6)

NQR (father)--------------------------------------el-'WR (son) 674-671 BCE) (Heshbon Ostracon A3 line 5)

[     ]' (father)-------------SMS-el  (son) (pro-Assyrian) (674-671 BCE) (Heshbon Ostracon A3 line 8)

SQL (father)--------------------------------------[el-`]ZR (son) (674-671 BCE) (Heshbon Ostracon A3 line 9)

HW[  -e]l (father)--------------------------------el-RM (son) (674-671 BCE) (Heshbon Ostracon A3 line 3)

One may want to place Heshbon Ostracon A1 not like Cross in 600 BCE but earlier in the time of  Ammonite dominance at Heshbon area, maybe when we allocated the Milkom seals, the Sargonic period?

Temakel is also from this time and his theophoric element is TEMAK-el (at the end) and in Heshbon  Ostracon A1 line 3 the Ammonites NDB-el and his father N`M-el are mentioned. We may want to place  NDB-el in the sargonic period and N`M-el in the period of Tiglath-Pilezer III (prior to 727 BCE).

Elsewhere (http://www.egw.org at VAN WYK NOTE) this researcher has claimed that this particular ostracon is an accountant scribe who is bringing together receipts of taxes paid to Hebrew kings for a period of over 150  years. It is a summary or overview since the name of Baasha (taken as king) is found in line 6. Such summaries would be  commonly expected by scribes from Ammon trying to show during the Hebrew imperialism or expansion  period of Jeroboam II and successors how they were faithful in paying taxes in their history. Thus the ostracon is pinpointing the events. The ostracon may have been just a "notebook" of the scribe while he has sent a beautiful vellum as a scroll to the king of Judah, maybe Hezekiah?

Cordially

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturers for Avondale College

Australia

9 June 2009