Geomagnetism,

Hezekiah’s Seals
and the ‘Sun
Turned Back’
What ancient pottery handles reveal about a major Earth
disturbance—and an astounding biblical miracle?
By C hr i stop h er Eam es • Janua ry 11, 2 021

As the sun’s coronal mass ejection reaches Earth, the solar

particles are deflected away by the planet’s magnetic field.
[N ASA God da r d Ph oto a n d Vid eo]

P
ottery fragments, to most people, are mundane,
worthless pieces of hardened clay. To
archaeologists, they are pretty valuable

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 P
(particularly rims and bases): Over time, pottery styles
gradually change, and by compiling a lexicon of profiles,
it is possible to date layers of earth based on the
different styles of pottery fragments found within.
Potsherds are also valuable to petrographers, who can
analyze the material makeup of the pottery and
determine the location from which the clay was sourced
in order to make the artifact.

But there is another peculiar field with an interest in

pottery remains: paleomagnetism. Recently, a
paleomagnetic discovery was made attesting to the
fiery intensity of the Babylonian destruction of
Jerusalem. Three years ago, another remarkable
paleomagnetic discovery was made, revealing dramatic
new evidence about Earth’s magnetic field during the
reign of King Hezekiah—and quite possibly attesting to
one of the most remarkable miracles in the Bible.

Geomagnetism and Pottery

What is paleomagnetism? (Bear with me as we go
through a little tedium before getting to the really
interesting stuff.) Paleomagnetism is the study of Earth’s
magnetic field as it existed and fluctuated throughout
our ancient past. Earth’s magnetic field is created by
electrical currents generated by the outer core: a 2,400-
kilometer-thick layer of primarily molten iron and
nickel, turning nearly 3,000 kilometers beneath our feet.
There’s a lot scientists don’t know about how it works,
but the movements of the core directly relate to the
often changing and fluctuating nature of the magnetic
field.

Earth’s magnetic field shields us from cosmic radiation.

Some apocalyptic films—and even news—have been
made on this subject in the past several decades (cue my
favorite, the Hollywood movie The Core), because
Earth’s magnetic field has been diminishing fairly

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 rapidly since around c.e. 1700. (According to scientists
using the new swarm satellite system, the “axial dipole”
component of the magnetic field is decreasing 5 percent
per decade, and is currently quite weak.) Rather than
causing the end of the world, however, scientists expect
that this weakening will eventually cause the magnetic
field to flip—something that has happened several
times throughout Earth’s history. Still, the last time
researchers believe this occurred was 800,000 years ago
—so you could say it’s a step into the unknown.

The fight between Earth’s shifting, protective magnetic field and

ejections from the sun can significantly affect rates of
radioactive decay.
[N ASA | God da rd S pace F light Ce nte r]

How this all relates to pottery is quite interesting. Tel

Aviv University Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef explains: “Ceramics
have tiny minerals—magnetic ‘recorders’—that save
information about the magnetic field of the time the clay
was in the kiln.” The firing of a vessel in the kiln
essentially captures and preserves the “fingerprint” of
Earth’s fluctuating geomagnetic field at that precise
point in time. This is known as “thermoremanent
magnetization”—weak magnetization of the clay objects
in the intensity and direction of Earth’s magnetic field.
With an established database of these values over time,

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 scientists could eventually use this method for dating
remains with extreme accuracy.

But in order to establish a solid dating database of

geomagnetic values over time, scientists must first take
artifacts of precisely known dates and use their
magnetization to provide that scale window into how
Earth’s magnetic field has changed throughout history.
And pottery fragments known as lmlk seals provide just
such an opportunity.

And a 2017 study of these artifacts by researchers from

the universities of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and San Diego
discovered something quite remarkable and dramatic
about Earth’s magnetic field during the reign of King
Hezekiah.

LMLK Seals
lmlk seals are unique stamps that adorned the handles
of specific Judahite vessels, carrying the inscription
lmlk (pronounced l’melekh), meaning “belonging to the
king.” Dating of these items, as well as their parallels to
personal bullae (clay seal stamps), shows that their use
was instituted during the reign of King Hezekiah at the
end of the eighth century b.c.e.

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 LMLK seal impression on pottery handle

There are two general designs ascribed to Hezekiah’s

period: a four-winged scarab design and a two-winged
sun design. Following Hezekiah’s reign, lmlk seals of
differing styles continued to be used throughout Judah
in varying form, right up to the destruction of Jerusalem
around 586 b.c.e., and continuing on further by the
Jews who remained in the land up until the second
century b.c.e. The clearly indicative nature of the
stamps makes them extremely easy to date; therefore,
analyzing the magnetization of their minerals from
inside the kiln provides a clear timescale of Earth’s
transforming magnetic field over the course of some 550
years.

The results of the analysis of these pottery handles were

stunning: They revealed a massive geomagnetic spike in
the late eighth century b.c.e.

Evidence of this Iron Age spike had been discovered as

early as 2009—but back then, it had been dismissed as a
data aberration, too extreme to have actually occurred.
But this new study has confirmed the original data, and
then some. This random, massive spike in the magnetic
field at the end of the eighth century b.c.e. was
immediately followed by a “sharp drop of 27 percent in
field intensity,” which then in turn steadily diminished
over the following 500 years, as shown by the
magnetization of the later lmlk seals.

What could have caused such a dramatic spike, such

dramatic behavior within Earth’s core? Scientists don’t
really know. But there is a fascinating related geologic
event recorded in the Bible that occurred at this very
time period.

The Sundial of Ahaz

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 The late eighth century b.c.e. was a turbulent time for
the southern kingdom of Judah. Midway through King
Hezekiah’s reign, the land had been invaded and
essentially conquered wholesale by the Assyrians, led by
King Sennacherib. Only Jerusalem remained. To make
matters worse, Hezekiah was holed up in the capital city
with a life-threatening illness. The Prophet Isaiah had
just informed him that he would soon die. “Then
Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed
unto the Lord …” (Isaiah 38:2).

God heard Hezekiah’s plea for help, and Isaiah returned,

assuring the king that he would be healed in three days,
that he would reign 15 more years, and that the Assyrian
siege would be broken. Hezekiah asked for a sign that
this would occur. 2 Kings 20:9:

And Isaiah said: ‘This shall be the sign unto thee

from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that He
hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten
degrees, or go back ten degrees?

Hezekiah realized that the greater miracle would be for

the shadow to go backward, rather than forward, and
chose that option. “[B]ehold, I will cause the shadow of
the dial, which is gone down on the sun-dial of Ahaz, to
return backward ten degrees.’ So the sun returned ten
degrees, by which degrees it was gone down” (Isaiah
38:8).

The physics to enable such an event to happen reveal a

jaw-dropping miracle. Of course, the sun doesn’t rotate
around the Earth—on a literal level, this scripture
apparently indicates that the Earth momentarily
reversed rotation.

The physical implications of such an event go beyond

moving shadows. Recent studies have modeled what
would happen if the Earth rotated in the opposite
direction. The results weren’t actually catastrophic.

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 The key would be in slowing the Earth’s rotation safely
and gradually enough in order to reverse direction. Of
course, in the realm of miracles, anything is possible.
But imagine stirring a cup of tea—think of Earth’s
swirling, molten outer core. Then, the stirring motion is
slowed and reversed—and in the process you have some
waves and resistance—a “spike,” you could say, in
volatility. Could this be the explanation for such a
massive geomagnetic spike in Hezekiah’s day?

The prophet Isaiah directs Hezekiah’s attention to the sundial of

Ahaz.

Perhaps there is another explanation for the event.

Again, in the realm of miracles, anything is possible. But
whatever the answer, it seems rather coincidental that
such a dramatic geomagnetic spike occurred—followed
by an immediate and dramatic field-weakening—during
the reign of a king for whom the Bible records a jaw-
dropping planetary miracle.

Iron Age Turbulence

Further research has shown that there were, in fact, two
large spikes in the Iron Age—the above late eighth-

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 century b.c.e. spike, and another somewhere around
980 b.c.e. These both constitute, of their own accord,
massive individual spikes—equating to the “strongest
field recorded in the last 100,000 years,” according to
Ben-Yosef, who added that it may be the strongest
period ever.

This provides some fascinating data alongside the

biblical account. Could there be more to these “spikes”
than meets the eye—perhaps something of biblical
significance? We’ve linked the eighth-century b.c.e.
spike with the celestial miracle during Hezekiah’s
lifetime. What about the early 10th-century spike? Could
that have reflected a biblical event?

What happened around 980 b.c.e.? One particular,

supernatural event is described. This was about the
time that Solomon’s temple was completed. At the
dedication, “the house was filled with a cloud, even the
house of the Lord; so that the priests could not stand to
minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord
had filled the house of God” (2 Chronicles 5:13-14). The
presence of God had descended upon the temple, as it
was being dedicated. Notice 2 Chronicles 7:1-3:

Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the

fire came down from heaven, and consumed the
burnt-offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the
Lord filled the house. And the priests could not enter
into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the
Lord filled the Lord’s house. And all the children of
Israel looked on, when the fire came down, and the
glory of the Lord was upon the house; and they
bowed themselves with their faces to the ground ….

Could this account of a dramatic display of divinity have

had anything to do with the massive spike in the Earth’s
geomagnetic field at the same time? Again, Earth’s
magnetic field relates directly to cosmic radiation.
Perhaps there is some link to this and the fire that “came

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 down from heaven.”

There is an ongoing debate about the nature of

geomagnetic spikes—whether they are confined to a
single geographical area, or happened Earth-wide. Only
a limited number of such tests in this field have been
conducted at other sites around the world, so we will
have to wait and see how research develops in this
unique field. However, the current research suggests
that “Hezekiah’s” spike was worldwide.

Besides these two powerful spikes: The same

researchers noted it was in particular “the early Iron
Age of the Eastern Mediterranean (circa 1200–700
b.c.e.) when the [magnetic] field fluctuated rapidly, with
intensity peaks reaching more than 150 percent of the
model-predicted values.” The researchers suggest that
many of these additional intensity values are “noise” in
the data set, or inaccuracies. But given they relate
directly to the precise region and time period of biblical
Israel and its miracles, maybe they are not.

A ‘Winged’ Sun
For now, we can only speculate on the cause of these
geomagnetic events. The reason for them is baffling to
scientists. Certainly, the anomalous spike at the end of
the eighth century b.c.e. fits well with the description
of a remarkable celestial-geological event.

And perhaps the biblical account of the “sun turning

back,” geomagnetism and lmlk seals could shine a new
light on Hezekiah’s motifs—particularly the personal
seal stamp of King Hezekiah (below), discovered in 2010
by Dr. Eilat Mazar. In the center is a winged sun, flanked
by two ankh symbols representing life. Rays emanate
from the sun (or could the lines represent a sundial?).
Mazar posits that this motif, including the unique
depiction of the sun with downturned wings, represents

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 a healed and humbled Hezekiah given new life. This
symbolism is shown in several scriptures—Malachi 4:2
mentions the “Sun” with “healing in his wings.”

Is there an additional meaning in this motif, matching

Hezekiah’s remarkable healing? A “flying” sun that
“turned back”?

The Hezekiah bulla, which Dr. Eilat Mazar discovered during the
2009 Ophel excavations
[Ouri a Ta dm or | Court esy E ilat Mazar]

C OP YR IGH T © 2 0 24 GE RA LD R. FLUR RY, ALL R I GH TS R ESE RV ED .

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