Hanan ben Hilqiyahu the Priest Bulla

The Hanan ben Hilqiyahu the Priest bulla entered scholarly awareness through the antiquities market rather than controlled excavation, a circumstance common to many First Temple period bullae. It is housed in the Reuben and Edith Hecht Collection at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and has been examined and published within the broader corpus of Hebrew seal impressions assembled and analyzed by Nahman Avigad and Benjamin Sass in the late twentieth century. Its unprovenanced status is noted in the scholarly literature, though its paleographic profile and physical characteristics are consistent with late Iron Age Judahite administrative practice. The bulla is a small fired clay impression, typical of the seal-and-bulla administrative system used in Judah during the eighth through early sixth centuries BC. The Hebrew inscription reads, in translation, "Belonging to Hanan son of Hilqiyahu the priest," with the title "ha-kohen" (the priest) explicit in the legend. Paleographic analysis places the script within the late monarchic period, roughly the late seventh to early sixth century BC. The use of the title "ha-kohen" directly on the seal is notable, as it identifies the bearer's cultic office within the official administrative hierarchy of pre-exilic Judah. The bulla's theological and historical significance lies primarily in its corroboration of a named priestly individual bearing the patronymic Hilqiyahu (Hilkiah), the same name carried by the high priest who discovered the Book of the Law during Josiah's temple repairs, as recorded in 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34. While direct identification with any biblical figure remains speculative, the artifact confirms that "Hilkiah" was an active priestly name in late monarchic Judah and that priestly families maintained identifiable administrative roles within the royal bureaucracy. It thus contextualizes the broader institutional priesthood reflected in pre-exilic biblical narrative. **Sources:** Nahman Avigad and Benjamin Sass, *Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals* (Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1997); Robert Deutsch, *Biblical Period Hebrew Bullae: The Josef Chaim Kaufman Collection* (Archaeological Center Publication, 2003); 2 Kings 22:4–8; 2 Chronicles 34:9.