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ON THE COVER: A muscular sphinx dominates the center register of the first Ammonite royal seal ever to come to light. The seal belonged to Ba’alis, king of the Ammonites in about 580 B.C.E., who is described in the Bible as plotting to murder the governor of Judah. The Ammonites lived east of the Jordan and were long a thorn in the side of the Israelites. The tiny seal—less than a half an inch in diameter and only .2 inches thick—is made of brown agate with white bands. Despite its modest size, the seal has much to teach us about the Ammonites; as Robert Deutsch explains in “Seal of Ba’alis Surfaces.”