The Riddle of Ramat Raḥel: The Archaeology of a Royal Persian ...

18The conclusion is that the lion stamp impression system belongs to an earlier and wider 6thcentury BCE administrative system, and that it should be placed in the Babylonian period. This isthe “missing link” in the administrative continuity in Judah between the later Iron Age and thePersian period systems; it was part of the Babylonian administration that lasted until the beginningof the Persian period, at which point it was replaced by the yhwd stamp impression system.The prominence of the lion stamp impressions is another indication that Ramat Raḥelcontinued to have a prominent administrative role during the 6th century BCE, while its secondbuilding phase continued to exist. The fact that only one mwṣh stamp impression, which probablyalso dates to the mid-6th century BCE (Zorn, Yellin and Hayes 1994: 161-183), came from RamatRaḥel, whereas 30 mwṣh stamp impressions were excavated at Tell en-Naṣbeh―the new capital ofJudah after the destruction of Jerusalem (Lipschits 2005: 179-181)―is another indication of thedifferent role and status of the capital (be it Jerusalem or Mizpah) and the administrative centerthat continued to exist at Ramat Raḥel.The newly discovered, and not yet published, pottery assemblage from Ramat Raḥel, stands asthe clear marker for this group of 6th century BCE pottery assemblage. Especially remarkable isthe resemblance of the newly found yhwd store jars and their predecessors—Rosette store jars(Fig. 4). It is the first proof of the theory that characteristics of the well-known local potteryassemblages dating to the end of the Iron Age and to the Persian period exhibit continuity, andtherefore attest to the existence of an unbroken tradition of pottery production in Judah from theend of the 7th to the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. The new pottery assemblage from Ramat Raḥel isone of the few known thus far that clearly fills this gap, and thus supports the assumption that thelocal traditions of pottery production continued throughout the 6th century BCE. This group ofstore jars, with the stamped impressions found on them, is to be connected to activities conductedat the site during the second and third building phases.The second pottery assemblage, discussed above, is from construction that was built into thesouthern part of the garden (Building 824). A destruction debris layer was exposed, and it hadsealed a pottery assemblage of three restorable jars, a jug, and some other pottery vessels on thefloor of the building. This assemblage shows that the building had been destroyed and abandonedin the late Persian or the Early Hellenistic period (4th century BCE), thus, supplying a small butclear and well dated late Persian–Early Hellenistic pottery assemblage that supplements the onefrom the Babylonian and early Persian period.