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Rare Crusade-Era Seal Discovered in Jerusalem

A rare Crusade-era lead seal used to secure a letter has been uncovered in an ancient farmstead in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority says.
Image: Mar Saba seal
One side of a lead seal from the days of the Crusades bears the image of a bearded St. Sabas holding a cross.Israel Antiquities Authority
/ Source: Live Science

A rare Crusade-era lead seal used to secure a letter was uncovered in an ancient farmstead in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Tuesday.

The 800-year-old seal was probably once fixed to a document delivered to the farm from a sprawling cliffside monastery in the Judean Desert that was founded by St. Sabas ("Mar Saba" in Aramaic) and once housed hundreds of monks.

"This is an extraordinarily rare find, because no such seal has ever been discovered to date," Benyamin Storchan and Benyamin Dolinka, the antiquity authority's excavation directors, said in a statement. [The Holy Land: 7 Amazing Archaeological Finds]

Image: Mar Saba seal
One side of a lead seal from the days of the Crusades bears the image of a bearded St. Sabas holding a cross.Israel Antiquities Authority

This type of ancient seal was also known as a bulla in Latin. It consisted of two blank lead disks that would have been hammered together with a string between them. Opening the letter would cause obvious damage to the bulla, which was intended to discourage unauthorized people from breaking the seal.

One side of the seal bears the image of the bearded Byzantine-era saint. Sabas is wearing a himation (essentially a Greek version of a toga), brandishing a cross in his right hand and perhaps holding a copy of the gospel in his left hand.

The other side of the seal is etched with a Greek inscription, translated as: "This is the seal of the Laura of the Holy Sabas." (The monastery was also called the "Great Laura" of Mar Saba. A laura, or lavra, is a type of Orthodox Christian monastery that has a cluster of caves for hermit monks.)

Image: Lead seal
The other side of the seal bears an inscription identifying it as "the seal of the Laura of the Holy Sabas."Israel Antiquities Authority

The seal was uncovered during excavations in 2012 in southwestern Jerusalem's Bayit VeGan quarter. The farm site was established during the Byzantine period (5th to 6th centuries) and resettled during the Crusader period (11th–12th centuries).

A document in the archives of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem refers to a farming settlement known as Thora that was sold to the Mar Saba monastery in 1163–1164.

— Megan Gannon, LiveScience

This is a condensed version of a report from LiveScience. Read the full report. Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow LiveScience on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.