Sacred Relics
Ark of the Covenant
Ark of the Covenant
The seat of God's presence. Carried before the people, it parted the Jordan and brought down the walls of Jericho.
VesselFirst recorded c. 600 BCE
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Photograph: A fourteenth-century BCE Egyptian gold signet ring. A flat engraved bezel is attached to a thick hoop.
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4,000 × 3,200 PX4000×3200
ArchiveSacred Relics · Jewel
Seal of Solomon
Seal of Solomon
Its seal commands demons and lets the wearer understand beasts and birds.
- Owner
- King Solomon
- Maker
- Brought from heaven by the archangel Michael
- First record
- Testament of Solomon300
- Gallery
- Sacred Relics
Notes on the photograph 3
Story
According to the apocryphal Testament of Solomon, while the Temple in Jerusalem was being built a demon drained the strength of a young workman every night. When Solomon prayed, the archangel Michael brought him from heaven a ring engraved with a seal.
With the ring in hand Solomon summoned the demons one by one, forced out their names and weaknesses and set them to work on the Temple. The Talmud also tells how the demon king Asmodeus seized the ring, flung Solomon far away and posed as king.
In Islamic tradition the ring lives on as the Seal of Sulayman. Stories of commanding the winds and the jinn and understanding the speech of birds and ants flowed all the way into the Thousand and One Nights. The seal itself was drawn as a five- or six-pointed star.
The photograph shows a gold signet ring from Egypt's Amarna Period in the fourteenth century BCE.
The object in the photo
The photograph shows Signet ring(Egypt, New Kingdom, Amarna Period, ca. 1347–1330 BCE), a real museum object that evokes the legendary artifact.
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