Scaraboid made of bright red chalcedony, lengthwise perforated, 20 mm, engraved with "(Seal) of Hanan" above a lion, ist jaws stretched wide open, its tail raised, striding to the r.

Scaraboid made of bright red chalcedony, lengthwise perforated, 20 mm, engraved with "(Seal) of Hanan" above a lion, ist jaws stretched wide open, its tail raised, striding to the r.


Very rare: Seal of a woman.

Overbeck – Meshorer no. A20.

For this motif cf. Weippert 674. The lion is linked with Jacob’s son Judah who is called 'a young lion' (gur aryeh) by his father (Genesis 49, 9: "Judah is a lion’s whelp"). Today the lion is depicted in Jerusalem’s municipal coat of arms. In antiquity many Jews living in the diaspora were named ΛεόντιοςLeontios which means 'lion-like' or 'descending from a lion' in order to avoid the name Judah sounding alien to the Greek speaking people, cf. L. Robert, Inscriptions grecques de Sidè en Pamphylie, RPh 32, 1958, 15-53, esp. 42 n. 7 (= ders. Opera Minora Selecta 5, 155-193, esp. 182 n. 7); J. Nollé Side im Altertum. Geschichte und Zeugnisse II, Bonn 2001, 512 f. n. 4 f. In the same way Jewish people living in a Yiddish speaking diaspora were called Loew.