Oldest fragment of a cuneiform seal found in Egypt at Tel El-Daba

The Austrian Archaeological mission from the Austrian Archaeological Centre in Egypt unearthed a fragment of a cuneiform seal impression dating to the last decades of the Babylonian Kingdom.

The seal impression was found inside a pit that cuts into layers of the Late Period in Tel El-Daba, an archaeological site in the Sharqiya governorate, 120 km north-east Cairo.

It bears the name of a top governmental official who lived during the old Babylonian era, during the reign of king Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC).

Dr. Manfred Bietak, the head of the Austrian mission, said that both seal impressions are of great archaeological importance, as they are the oldest to be found in Egypt. They are dated to 150 years before the cuneiform correspondence found in the capital of Akhenaten at Tel El-Amarna.

drhawass.com

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Tags: Amarna, Babylonia, cairo, cuneiform seal, Manfred Bietak

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 4:31 pm and is filed under Egyptology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.