An Aramaic Ostracon (HB 135) from Khirbet el-Kom

Abstract

Until the present day, over two thousand Aramaic ostraca from Idumea have appeared regularly at different sites1 , either during controlled excavations or illegal digging. In 1971, eight Aramaic ostraca were discovered (6 in a room and 2 in the foundations of the city gate) from the Hellenistic Period during the excavations directed by J. Holladay of the University of Toronto at Khirbet el-Kôm (sea level 425m, E-146590 N-104440), thirteen kilometers southwest of Hebron (Holladay 1971). They were described, deciphered and interpreted in a detailed study in L. Geraty’s dissertation in 1972, and were republished by Yardeni 2000a, A. 358–359; B. 119. Based on ostracon No. 3, which bears bilingual writing (Edomite and Greek), the ostraca in Geraty’s study were dated to 277 bc2 . They belong to the records of an Idumean moneylender called qwsydᶜ son of ḥnᵓ. One hundred Aramaic ostraca from Arad, dated to the early 4th century bc, are about deliveries of barley and wheat, horses and donkeys (Naveh 1981). Another sixty-seven Aramaic ostraca come from Bir Es-sabaᶜ (Naveh 1973; 1979); four from Tel Jemmeh, dated to the 7th century BC (Naveh 1992); and one from Marisa.3 Around 201 legible Aramaic ostraca bought from the antiquity dealers appear in Ephʻal and Naveh’s monograph in 1996, the archeological contexts and provenances of which are not defined by the authors but are randomly attributed to different sites in Idumea and dated to the late Persian and early Hellenistic periods. The largest collection of Aramaic ostraca found in the area (621 ostraca) was published by Lemaire in two volumes in 1996 and 2002. Some of these may have originated from Khirbet el-Kôm. A further 17 Aramaic ostraca from Idumea were published in an article by Aḥituv–Yardeni 2004. Presumably further ostraca are still being found during illegal digging in the area.