Charles Warren excavated the first two specimens in the original 1868–1869 excavations at
Jerusalem (Warren, 1870); however, those were both only partial impressions showing the final two letters ST. The first complete inscription was published by
F. J. Bliss after excavating it from
Tell Ej-Judeideh (Bliss, 1900), later determined to be biblical
Moresheth-Gath. Beginning then, here is a list of all the ancient sites scholars have associated with it:
These proposals fall into two main streams of thought. One school places MMST in a geographical region based on the identification of three other regions surrounding
Hebron,
Sokho, and
Ziph (the other words on the
LMLK seals). The chief problem is that the majority of the seal impressions were not found in any particular region associated with one of the four inscriptions. For example, the majority of HBRN stamps were found at
Lachish significantly to the west. An alternative strategy identifies MMST in the vicinity of
Jerusalem (which includes
Ramat Rachel) based upon the datum that the majority of MMST stamps were excavated in and around there. The chief problem is that there were more HBRN stamps than MMST found at
Jerusalem and more Z(Y)F stamps than MMST found at
Ramat Rachel (Grena, 2004, pp. 354–360).
In further support of a place name interpretation is the notion that MMST was lost from the
HebrewMasoretic version of the
Book of Joshua, but preserved in a form corrupted beyond recognition through
Greek transliteration in the
Septuagint. The Septuagint version contains eleven additional place names, one of which could correspond to the lost MMST (Rainey, 1982, p. 59; cf.
Joshua 15:59–60 in the
New Revised Standard Version):[1]
In 1905,
R.A.S. Macalister suggested that MMST could also mean
Mareshah, but instead of identifying it with the town, he proposed that the seal referred to a potter (or family of potters).
And
Hezekiah was attentive to them, and showed them all the house of his treasures--the silver and gold, the spices and precious ointment, and all his armory--all that was found among his treasures. There was nothing in his house or in all his dominionthat
Hezekiah did not show them.
Note that Ginsberg suspected such a literal reading of the inscription in a paper presented in 1945, but changed to the geographic association with
Jerusalem in 1948.
Note also the well-known
Moabite inscription from
Kerak that begins with the fragmented phrase ...MSYT MLK. While we may never know if the first word is a compound of KMS, the
Moabite deity mentioned in the
Bible as
Chemosh, the MMST on the
LMLK seals may have been "MMSYT" written scriptio defectiva with a possible relation to the
Arabic "mumsa", "place where one spends the night".[3]
^"It could be somewhere in the Bethlehem district, a name completely lost in Josh 15:59a (LXX), and may represent the collection center for the royal vineyards inherited from the house of Jesse."
^"Hommel a déjà rapproché, à juste titre nous semble-t-il, mmst de l'arabe mumsa, (lieu où l'on passe la nuit)". Lemaire 1975's French roughly translates as "a place where one stops in the evening".
Bibliography
Abel, Pere [Félix-Marie] (1938). Geographie de la Palestine II. p. 377, footnote 17 (in French).
Aharoni, Y. (1960). "Hebrew jar-stamps from Ramat Rahel". Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies. 6: 28.
Barkay, G. (personal communication quote by editor
Ephraim Stern; 1993). Ramat Rahel in New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land. p. 1267.
Yeivin, Shemuel (1961). First Preliminary Report on the Excavations at Tel Gat (Tell Sheykh 'Ahmed el-Areyny) 1956–1958. Jerusalem: The Gat Expedition. pp. 9–11.