University of Michigan and University of Minnesota Excavations at Tel Kedesh I: The Hellenistic Archive and Its Sealings

This is the first volume in a projected series of final reports on the 1997-2012 University of Michigan/University of Minnesota excavations at Tel Kedesh, located in the Upper Galilee of modern Israel and the hinterland of ancient Tyre. It presents the 2nd century BCE Hellenistic archive and the 2000+ sealings found there. The Kedesh archive complex was situated within a large, multipurposed administrative building, first constructed under Persian rule in the late 6th century BCE and then modified under Ptolemaic and Seleucid rule in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE. The sealings in the archive date to the final Seleucid phase of occupation in the first half of the 2nd century BCE. The first part of the volume situates the Kedesh archive within the context of excavated Hellenistic archives from Carthage in the west to Selucia-on-the-Tigris in the east and reflects on the varieties of archives, clienteles, and sealing practices so far known from the Hellenistic world. The second part presents an annotated illustrated catalog of the images and iconography of the 1,733 readable impressions found on the sealings. The subject matter of the 1,293 seal rings that produced the impressions was for the most part Greek. With contributions by Donald T. Ariel, Andrea M. Berlin, Paul Lesperance, and Anastasia Shapiro.