Last week, archaeologists presented the mayor of Jerusalem with an ancient clay seal, discovered on the Temple Mount and inscribed with the words, “belonging to the governor of the city.” Amanda Borschel-Dan explains its significance:

According to the site’s excavator Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah, “this is the first time that such an impression was found in an authorized excavation. It supports the biblical rendering of the existence of a governor of the city in Jerusalem 2,700 years ago.”

The minuscule clay seal impression . . . was found while researchers were examining the dust from a First Temple structure 100 meters northwest of the Western Wall at a site that the Israel Antiquities Authority has been excavating since 2005. The excavations have offered up insights into Jerusalem’s Second Temple and Roman periods, as well as a massive Iron Age [i.e., First Temple-period or earlier] four-room building where an eclectic collection of six other seals were uncovered, whose origins point to a thriving cosmopolitan center or settlement.

“The seal impression . . . served as some sort of logo, or as a tiny souvenir, which was sent on behalf of the governor of the city,” said Weksler-Bdolah, . . . [who explained] that the governor most likely functioned much like today’s mayor. The role is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible: in 2Kings, someone named Joshua is listed as the governor of the city in the days of King Hezekiah, and in 2Chronicles, Maaseiah is noted as governor of the city in the days of King Josiah.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.