I really wanted this to be about a seal that was trained to do an impression of King Jeroboam. I don’t know what that would look like, but I know it would be something I would want to see.
If it were any good it would look a lot like King Jeroboam. I wonder if he liked fish? Thats probably how they would know if it's a fake impression. How much fish the seal says it needs. He was an inland king.
Someone grumpily asked here what this has to do with tech, why it's here, etc. Their comment has been flagged but I think it's worth answering.
Biblical archaeology is a subject that relates to contemporary matters of public and popular interest mainly for how it relates to the myth-making done to support the foundation and maintenance of the modern nation-state of Israel.
Such archaeology, and particular narratives (e.g., about a united kingdom of Judea and Israel, specific chronologies of exile), have long played a role in justifying Israeli claims to contested land. This is true broadly, but especially relevant to the West Bank, which is of special historical significance for Jews. You'll often here that area referred to using biblical language, as 'Judea and Samaria'. For a variety of practical reasons, early Israeli settlers settled primarily elsewhere. The biblical significance of these areas is a frequent justification for further Israeli territorial expansion by radical, religious, Israeli Jewish settlers who settle illegally as a kind of act of religious fervor. The OP concerns another area of later and more controversial (than the founding) Israeli territorial expansion— the Golan Heights.
Such archaeology is also generally the basis for renaming Palestinian towns and villages, typically previously having had Arabic place names. In that way it renders ancient the very new towns built upon the ruins of those old ones, and erases what was there until quite recently.
OP is decidedly partisan in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as is clear from a glance at their post history, in which, for example, they describe Human Rights Watch as 'a Hamas mouthpiece'. (I'm emotionally invested in the issue too, which is why I have bothered to learn any of this stuff. I don't point that out to distinguish OP's bias from some purported neutrality on my own part.)
If you're curious about the role of biblical archaeology in Israeli nationalist ideology and political history generally, Israeli historian Shlomo Sand's work seems to me like a great place to start. But if you're looking for some short form material just to know that I'm not making this connection up, this piece from the Smithsonian Magazine seems good: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/shifting-ground-in-th...
The issue of toponym replacement and the use of biblical archaeology to generate Israeli place names is covered (somewhat agonizingly repetitively) in Israeli historian Nur Masalha's book Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History, if you're curious about that.
Obviously, authors/works I've mentioned here are likely to be controversial at best among Zionists, and maybe among Israelis as well. It would not be unusual for even recommending them to be smeared as anti-Semitic. Fwiw, I don't think they're entirely without problems myself (though I do not believe them to be anti-Semitic or otherwise racist). Read critically.
Anyway, for those curious about why an article like this has been posted here: it's a proxy for current events and the land disputes and national identities at the heart of them.
You make a bunch of great points, but I'd like to add that archeology can (and IMO ought to) be interesting to a tech audience even when it isn't wrapped up in modern geopolitics.
The article links to the paper [1] that describes the tests used to detect forgeries and the results for this particular artifact. There are electron microscopes and chemical analysis and all kinds of sciency stuff. I'll take that over "I rewrote an app in a different JavaScript framework" any day of the week.
It's way more interesting to the average "hacker" than the price or occupancy of San Francisco real estate, or the latest panic du jour (AI, crypto, etc)
I agree that biblical studies and biblical archaeology can be interesting. I think kej's comment (sibling to ours) makes a great point about the technical dimension both of the article and of the subject of archaeology in general!
Ah I was disappointed at how shallow this was. We dont have to reduce ourselves to merely hot pop topics. We dont need to condone or condemn Israel to justify biblical archeology or biblical scholarship on this site. Notably, your answer still doesn't justify a tech reason, just "we should understand why Jews are genocidal" Which itself lacks the intense critical reasoning demanded by, and integral to, modern exegesis- so it's good this site brought you and it together!
Biblical scholarship & exegesis is an exceedingly interesting and intellectually demanding science. No less rigorous than algorithms or data structures. The work that has gone into to dissecting say Deuteronomy or Daniel is an incredible lift. If you enjoy standing on the shoulders of giants like Moore or Strousup then you would enjoy modern exegesis as well.
