The workers’ unions of today had ancient predecessors known as workers’ guilds, which helped groups of tradespeople—merchants, writers, artisans—negotiate for pay and represent themselves to the wider body politic. (Modern universities are in part a result of worker’s guilds; some of them, like the University of Bologna, originated as guilds of students.) Going by a recent archaeological discovery, there may even have existed a guild of craftsmen in ancient Jerusalem whose members identified themselves with the legendary Greek craftsman Daedalus.
As John Drummond writes, an inscription was discovered on a limestone column in Jerusalem from the Herodian period, the late first century BCE to the early first century CE. The inscription reads “Hananiah son of Daedalus, from Jerusalem.”
The inscription was written in square Hebrew script in a formal commemorative style that was executed with the precision of a master engraver. As discussed by Aaron Demsky in his article “Daedalus in Jerusalem” in the Fall 2023 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, the inscribed name likely refers to one of the artisans that operated in the workshop or possibly one of the builders. If so, the fact that Hananiah refers to himself as the “son of Daedalus” raises some intriguing possibilities.
In antiquity, groups of artisans frequently took on the moniker of the legendary heroes of their craft. For instance, a group of poets from the isle of Chiros called themselves the “sons of Homer.” Like Homer, the craftsmanship of Daedalus was legendary. While his greatest accomplishment was likely constructing the famed Labyrinth of King Minos of Crete, Daedalus was also said to have engineered the contraption that Minos’s queen, Pasiphae, used in her exploits that resulted in the birth of the Minotaur. Perhaps the best-known story involving Daedalus concerns his famous son, Icarus, who flew too close to the sun using the wax wings that his father had designed for him and subsequently plummeted to his death.
Read more on Biblical Archaeology Review: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/daedalus-in-jerusalem/