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The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

This bulla from the Lachish hoard bore a tantalizing inscription: “Shebnayahu … ha-melekh” (“Shebnayahu … the king”). The standard format of this type of inscription told scholars that the missing word—lost completely in the broken-off portion of the bulla—would have been either ben (“son”) or eved (“servant”). So this Shebnayahu was either the son or the servant of the king—but which one was it?