2,600-year-old seal found beneath Jerusalem parking lot

A dig 40 feet under a former parking lot in Jerusalem unearthed a tiny clay seal bearing the name of an aide to the biblical King Josiah.

Some 2,600 years old, it bears the name of a royal official known as "Natan L'Melech," reports the Jewish website Aish.

The Israel antiquities authority is supervising the dig, which also has yielded a blue agate stone seal known as a bulla.

It carried the inscription belonging to Ikkar son of Matanyahu, officials said.

"This is not just another discovery," said Professor Yuval Gadot, 51, the head of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, in an interview with Aish.

He is leading the dig.

"We are talking about the cradle of civilization and a highly significant item which bears the name of a specific individual," he said.

The report said the seal was the first archaeological evidence of the biblical name Nathan-Melech.

"This official was so high profile he is not referred to using his father's name. There was no need. We are talking about someone who everybody knew," he said.

Gadot said the seal and the bulla both were found situated so that they would have been in the same building.

"As we are digging, we are seeing that this was a central part of Jerusalem at the time, busy with administrative activity and also close to the temple mount," he told Aish.

"What is so striking is that it is smaller than a thumbnail, it weighs almost nothing, but its importance is diametrically opposite to its size," Doron Spielman, vice president of the City of David, told Aish.

He added, "There are so many people who think this book (the Bible) was made up and seek to erase Jewish history in Jerusalem, yet here we find the stamp of the seal of the servant of the king."