Biblical Whore or Victim of Ancient Misogynism?

The priest may have told you not to follow the Biblical example of Jezebel, the lewd and wicked ancient queen, but an old stone tells more about the Old Testaments' vicious girl.

The stone was found in Israel in 1964, and linked to Queen Jezebel, but only recently did the researchers solve the puzzle of the seal's engraved markings typical to royal objects. "The lion-sphinx with female head and female Isis-Hathor crown, which is unique, this clearly points to a queen," said lead researcher Marjo Korpel, an Old Testament scholar at the University of Utrecht.

The seal revealed that Jezebel, who ended tragically, exerted a considerable power in ancient Israel, as pointed by the research published in the Journal for Semitics. Jezebel lived in the 9th century B.C. and was the wife of King Ahab of Israel. She was of Phoenician descend and regarded as pagan by the monotheist Jews. She attempted to convert Jews from monotheism (believing in one God) to the Semitic religion of the Phoenicians, whose main god was Baal. For this purpose, she even faked her husband's seal on documents, as Bible says.

The Holly Book does not mention anything about her own seal, but this stone seems to have been exactly her seal. The symbols, name and above-average size point to this fact. "The lotus (below the Horus falcon) was a symbol of gender definition and refers to a female owner, [while] the winged sun disk was a well-known symbol of royalty in and outside Israel.", Korpel told LiveScience.

"Other symbols on the seal also reinforce the connection to a monarch, such as the Horus and double-cobra, a figure probably adopted from Egypt", she said. The seal has clearly engraved "yzbl" on it, and similar seals of the time show that the missing upper edge of the seal could have comprised the two missing letters for the right spelling of "Jezebel".

"With her own seal, Queen Jezebel was able to exert a powerful influence upon people around her, much like the Egyptian queens. The biblical texts already prove that she was a powerful woman. The queens in Egypt ... all have in common their prominent roles in religion, politics and representational art, and their status as principal wife. This also seems to count for Queen Jezebel," said Korpel.

But ancient Israel was not a place were women could rule; in the end, Jezebel was regarded as a threat to social rules and a pagan, being prosecuted for prostitution, murder and sorcery, and tossed from her window to be ravaged by dogs.

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