Page 399 - עידן האימפריות

disappeared and only the symbol remained. It should be emphasized, that not
even one handle included in the types attributed to the late lmlk system was
found under the destruction layers dated to 701 BCE, a clear archeological
indication that jars with these types of stamp impressions had not yet been
manufactured during that period.
The number of types in the system of the late lmlk stamp impressions
is smaller (only eight types are known) and the same applies to the number
of stamped jars (486 handles which were found in excavations and in
archeological surveys). The distribution of this system is much narrower
than that of the early lmlk one, and the acute decline stands out mainly in
the sites of the Judean Shephelah. Apparently, the fact that the Shephelah
suffered greatly from Sennacherib, the King of Assyria (701 BCE), and its
severance from Judah at least until the beginning of the last third of the 7th
century BCE, are the main reasons for the difference between the early and
late lmlk impression systems. The main collection centers of this system are
Jerusalem (about 180 handles) and Ramat Raḥel (133 handles), with only
four handles bearing the late lmlk stamp impression discovered in Lachish,
all from unclear archeological contexts, while only 20 late types of the lmlk
handles were found in the Judean Shephelah.
A slightly different system of concentric circle incisions continued the
lmlk stamp impressions of the late types, which probably existed during the
first quarter of the 7th century BCE. Although the concentric circle incisions
are not stamp impressions on jar handles, they form part of an administrative
system which ensured that the late lmlk jars matched up to the new system
which continued it in the second quarter of the 7th century BCE while
reusing a few jars, and probably with a limited production of new jars which
were required for the system's operation. 282 handles with concentric circle
incisions were found in excavations and in archeological surveys, and about
50 percent of them were incised on handles which had been earlier impressed
with the lmlk stamps, in many cases near the stamp impressions and
sometimes even over them. 94 percent of the entire finding of the handles
engraved with concentric circle incisions was found around Jerusalem: 146
handles in Jerusalem itself, 40 handles in Ramat Raḥel, 33 in Gibeon, and 17
in Tel en-Nasbeh (Mizpah).
The rosette are the last in a series of stamp impressions on jar handles in
the Kingdom of Judah. It should be assumed that the operation of this system

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