ArchaeologistGottlieb Schumacher and his team began excavating at Megiddo and found the seal during a three-year excavation program.[4] The seal was discovered in 1904, in an excavation dump. The layers in which it was found were dated to the eighth century BCE.[5][6] Schumacher sent the original seal to Istanbul, but it was never returned.[7] In 1966 Gottlieb's daughter gave a testimonial that her father told her that the seal was placed in Abdul Hamid II tomb.[8]
A bronze cast was made before it was sent away.[9][10]
The Shema bulla is a scaled down version of the Meggido seal.[11][12][13] The bulla's owner claimed to have bought it in the 1980s in Bedouin market in Be'er Sheva for 10 shekels.[14][15][16] However, the owner's account was refuted by noted antiquities expert and trader Robert Deutsch, who provided evidence for the purchase of the bulla, along with a group of other fake bullas, from a known Jerusalem antiquities trader in Jerusalem. Deutsch went on to provide evidence for the bulla's forgery.[17]
^Merrill, A. L. "Shema' Seal". dl.atla.com. Retrieved 2024-02-16.
^Ussishkin, David (1994). "Gate 1567 at Megiddo and the Seal of Shema, Servant of Jeroboam". In Coogan, Michael D.; Exum, J. Cheryl; Stager, Lawrence E.; Greene, Josesph A. (eds.). Scripture and Other Artifacts; Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Honor of Philip J. King (First ed.). Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. pp. 410–428. ISBN0-664-22036-3. LCCN94009998 – via the Internet Archive.