JERUSALEM – An ancient clay seal discovered in Jerusalem in 2009 duringexcavations in East Jerusalem may have belonged to the prophet and could bethe earliest physical evidence of the biblical figure.

“We appear to have discovered a seal impression, which may have belongedto the prophet Isaiah, in a scientific, archaeological excavation,” saidEilat Mazar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Instituteof Archaeology.

The seal contains the word, Yesha’yahu, the Hebrew for ‘Isaiah.’ The upperpart is missing while the lower left part is damaged.

It has the second word with a letter believed to be missing. If that wasthe Hebrew letter aleph, the word would read ‘prophet’ in Hebrew. However,there’s also a possibility the word could be a location or a father’s name.

“The critically important letter that would be needed to confirm that thesecond word is the title ‘prophet’ is an aleph,” Christopher Rollston,professor of Semitic languages at George Washington University, toldNational Geographic. “But no aleph is legible on this bulla [clay seal],and so that reading cannot be confirmed at all.”

Isaiah advised King Hezekiah, who ruled the area between the eighth andseventh century B.C. The seal was found at an excavation site in the OldCity of Jerusalem, at the base of the southern wall of Temple Mount Thearea is a holy site for Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and is home to theal-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock.