Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Walter R. Mattfeld" <mattfeld12 AT charter.net>]

In December of 2000 I drew up a sketch and posted it at my website,
www.bibleorigins.net  of what I understood the Ark of the Covenant with its
Mercy Seat might look like, showing it as a Phoenician winged sphinx throne
(atop a chest) based on an ivory found at Late Bronze Age Meggido. This past
year I alerted the ANE audience of several exemplars of Late Bronze Age
portable thrones for Egyptian gods, Pharaoh and Amon-Re, which had a
"chest-like" appearance somewaht reminsicent of the Ark's being described as
a chest to hold the Ten Commandments. The problem ? Closer inspection
revealed that the god appeared to either standing or seated WITHIN the
chest-like object, NOT seated "atop it" as rendered in my proposal.

I am pleased to announce that my search for an Egyptian "exemplar" of a
chair-throne ATOP a "chest-like" structure has at last met with success. The
item is an Iron Age cylinder seal found at Meggido in Israel. For those
having an interest in said subject, you are invited to access the below url
and to then scroll down to the "UPDATE of 15 July 2004" for the image. There
are additional illustrations accessible via the blue underlined urls within
the accompaning texts. To access these illustrations it will be neccessary
to view the texts in "on-line" mode. If you do NOT see any blue urls within
the text, then you are reading it "off-line."

http://www.bibleorigins.net/cherubthroneside.html





Regards, Walter

Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed.

mattfeld12 AT charter.net

www.bibleorigins.net