VIII° - Intendant of the Building

אחד = DXA

Clausen’s VIII° Jewel is not linguistically consistent with other descriptions of the jewel, which state that “Achad” (AChD) is written in Samaritan. This is correct in the bottom image, which matches the Samaritan above. It looks more like the letters RQO in Clausen’s version.

The other side has the phrase BN ChORIM,

MYRTX NB

the plural version of the name “Ben Hur”. It occurs once in the Bible, 1 Kings 4:8, as the name of one of King Solomon's twelve district governors. This means that all individuals who reach this grade are symbolic district governors.

I am curious whether the author of Ben-Hur, Lew Wallace, was inspired by this degree to write the novel. Lew Wallace was raised to a Master Mason on January 15, 1851.

Wallace claimed that this book was inspired by Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo. Dumas was also a Mason.

This was the form I used to translate the Samaritan text into Hebrew. Column X and column 0.