Bullae of Jeremiah's officials: Jehucal son of Shelemiah, Gedaliah son of Pashhur, Gemariah son of Shaphan

Overview

Three bullae (clay lumps stamped by a seal to close a document) from the City of David carry names that also appear in Jeremiah 36-38. The Gemariah bulla came from the hoard of 51 bullae in the 'House of the Bullae' (Locus 967) in Area G of Yigal Shiloh's excavations. Eilat Mazar announced the Jehucal bulla on 4 August 2005 and the Gedaliah bulla on 31 July 2008, both from her excavation at the summit of the City of David.

The readings, as transcribed by Mykytiuk (2009), are lyhwkl bn shlmyhw bn shby, 'belonging to Yehukal son of Shelemyahu son of Shobi'; lgdlyhw bn pshhwr, 'belonging to Gedalyahu son of [P]ashhur'; and lgmryhw [b]n shpn, 'belonging to Gemaryahu son of Shaphan'. The Bible names Jehucal son of Shelemiah and Gedaliah son of Pashhur together among the officials who heard Jeremiah and had him put in the cistern (Jer 37:3; 38:1-6). It places Gemariah son of Shaphan the scribe in a chamber of the temple under Jehoiakim (Jer 36:10-12, 25).

Mykytiuk grades the Jehucal and Gedaliah matches 'grade 2 or higher' (reasonable, with a third identifying mark lacking) and the Gemariah match 'grade 3' (reliable). He notes that the stratigraphic context of Mazar's two bullae is disputed and that her final publication was still awaited in 2009.

What the text says (summary)

(1) Belonging to Yehukal, son of Shelemyahu, son of Shobi. (2) Belonging to Gedalyahu, son of [P]ashhur. (3) Belonging to Gemaryahu, [so]n of Shaphan.Literal translation (this encyclopedia) of the transliterations lyhwkl b[n] shlmyhw bn shby; lgdlyhw. bn [p]shhwr.; lgmryhw [b]n shpn, as published in Mykytiuk, Maarav 16/1 (2009): 86, 92, 110. No public-domain translation exists.

What the evidence shows

Jehucal bulla: a horizontal oval from a nearly circular seal. There is no border line, and three lines hold five words without dividers. A chip removes the top of the first letter of line 2, the nun of bn (Mykytiuk 2009: 86).
Jehucal bulla: found by Area A supervisor Yoav Farhi 'between two large stones' in the Large Stone Structure; discovery announced 4 Aug 2005 (Mykytiuk 2009: 87).
Jehucal's patronyms: Mykytiuk reads shin, Shelemyahu and Shobi, because those spellings match known biblical names (2 Sam 17:27 has Shobi), rather than sin (Mykytiuk 2009: 86-87).
Gedaliah bulla: aniconic horizontal ellipse. A single line surrounds the face and a double line divides two registers. Diagonal scratches cross the centre, and the pe of Pashhur is partly scraped off, so it is 'very uncertain at first sight' (Mykytiuk 2009: 92-93).
Gedaliah bulla: discovery announced 31 July 2008. Photos are in Mazar, Palace of King David (2009): 66, 68, and the findspot is mapped on p. 69 (Mykytiuk 2009: 92-93).
Gemariah bulla: from Locus 967 ('House of the Bullae'), Area G, Shiloh's excavations, in a hoard of 51 bullae. Its first nun (lower register), documented in an early photograph before it broke off, has parallel shafts and a perpendicular crossbar, a late-7th-century form (Mykytiuk 2009: 90, 110-111).
Gedaliah bulla findspot per the excavator: in the thick destruction layer under the Babylonian-period stratum, attributed by Mazar to 586 BCE (Mazar 2009, summarised by the Armstrong Institute).

Open questions

Same men or namesakes? Mykytiuk (Maarav 2009) accepts all three matches. Jehucal and Gedaliah are grade 2 or higher: the name and patronym match, and the date and setting fit. Gemariah is grade 3. He notes that another father-and-son pair Shelemyahu/Yehukal could have lived in Jerusalem, and that a royal-palace findspot would be a third identifying mark if the Large Stone Structure could be shown to be royal.
Stratigraphic context. Eilat Mazar (Palace of King David, 2009) takes the Large Stone Structure to be a royal building used until 586 BCE. Finkelstein, Herzog, Singer-Avitz and Ussishkin ('Has King David's Palace in Jerusalem Been Found?', Tel Aviv 34, 2007) dispute her dating of the building's elements. Mykytiuk (2009: 94) states that the Gedaliah and Jehucal findspots 'lie in an archaeological context whose date is disputed' and relies on palaeography.
The first letter of Gedaliah's patronym. Mykytiuk argues for pe, ruling out kaph and mem on letter shape and space; nun 'perhaps cannot be ruled out completely'. The identification with Pashhur depends on this reading.

Since 2024

2026-03Mykytiuk's BAS list of biblical persons identified in inscriptions was updated (now '53 People'); it still includes Gemariah, Jehucal and Gedaliah. [5]
2026-09Findspot restated from the excavator's own report beside Mykytiuk's caution, after a by-hand check. [7]

Sources

Mykytiuk, L. J. 2009. "Corrections and Updates to 'Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200-539 B.C.E.'" Maarav 16(1): 49-132. doi:10.1086/mar200916105 link study
Mazar, E. 2009. The Palace of King David: Excavations at the Summit of the City of David. Preliminary Report of Seasons 2005-2007. Jerusalem/New York: Shoham Academic Research and Publication. link excavation report
Shiloh, Y. and Tarler, D. 1986. "Bullae from the City of David: A Hoard of Seal Impressions from the Israelite Period." The Biblical Archaeologist 49(4): 196-209. doi:10.2307/3210013 link excavation report
Biblical Archaeology Review. "Seals of Jeremiah's Captors Who Urged Imprisonment." BAR, September/October 2015. link study
Mykytiuk, L. "53 People in the Bible Confirmed Archaeologically." Biblical Archaeology Society (originally BAR, March/April 2014; updated 22 March 2026). link study
Finkelstein, I., Herzog, Z., Singer-Avitz, L. and Ussishkin, D. 2007. "Has King David's Palace in Jerusalem Been Found?" Tel Aviv 34(2): 142-164. doi:10.1179/tav.2007.2007.2.142 link study
Armstrong Institute, 'Is This Nehemiah's Wall?' (summary of E. Mazar's Summit of the City of David excavations 2005-2008) link summary of the excavator's report

Corrected from the earlier edition of this page

The excavator, Eilat Mazar, reports the Gedaliah bulla from the thick destruction layer directly beneath the Babylonian-period stratum, which she attributes to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE (Mazar 2009, as summarised by the Armstrong Institute). Mykytiuk (2009: 94) notes that the date of that context is disputed (Finkelstein et al. 2007) and therefore dates the bullae by letter forms, which give the same period. The findspot claim is the excavator's stratigraphy, not a rumour; the dispute is over what the stratigraphy can bear.
Calling the bullae 'Jeremiah's captors' own seals' is a step too far. They are clay impressions of seals, and the identification with the biblical officials rests on matching name plus patronym plus date, graded 'grade 2 or higher', not certain, for Jehucal and Gedaliah (Mykytiuk 2009).
The sister project cited the madainproject.com list for these bullae. That is not a primary source; the primary publications are Shiloh and Tarler (1986), Mazar (2009), and the analysis in Mykytiuk (2009).
Gedaliah's patronym is sometimes printed as certain. The first letter of Pashhur is damaged and uncertain (Mykytiuk 2009: 92-93).

Checked against new publications through 2026-09.