excavated the first two specimens in the original 1868–1869 excavations at Jerusalem ; however, those were both only partial impressions showing the final two letters ST. The first complete inscription was published by Frederick Jones Bliss after excavating it from Tell Ej-Judeideh, later determined to be biblical Moresheth-Gath. Beginning then, here is a list of all the ancient sites scholars have associated with it:
These proposals fall into two main streams of thought. One philosophical school places MMST in a geographical region based on the identification of three other regions surrounding Hebron, Sokho, and Ziph. The chief problem is that the majority of the seal impressions were not found in any particular region associated with one of the four inscriptions. For example, the majority of HBRN stamps were found at Lachish significantly to the west. An alternative strategy identifies MMST in the vicinity of Jerusalem based upon the datum that the majority of MMST stamps were excavated in and around there. The chief problem is that there were more HBRN stamps than MMST found at Jerusalem and more ZF stamps than MMST found at Ramat Rachel. In further support of a place name interpretation is the notion that MMST was lost from the HebrewMasoretic text, but preserved via a corrupt Greek transliteration in the Septuagint version of the Book of Joshua :
In 1905 Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister suggested that MMST meant Mareshah, but instead of identifying it with the town, he proposed that the seal referred to a potter.
A proclamation?
If the LMLK seal inscriptions were votive slogans or mottoes instead of geographical places, MMST may share the same etymological root as MMSLTW, a Hebrew word used in the Bible translated alternately as domain, dominion, force, government, power, realm, responsibility, rule. The parallel passage found in and deserves special attention for its association of the word in the same chronological context as the LMLK seals: Likewise : Note that Ginsberg suspected such a literal reading of the inscription in a paper presented in 1945, but changed to the geographic association with Jerusalem in 1948. Note also the well-known Moabite inscription from Kerak that begins with the fragmented phrase ...MSYT MLK. While we may never know if the first word is a compound of KMS, the Moabite deity mentioned in the Bible as Chemosh, the MMST on the LMLK seals may have been "MMSYT" written scriptio defectiva with a possible relation to "mumsa" in the Arabic language.
