The “Three Shekels” and “Widow’s Plea” Ostraca: Real or Fake?

Home > Magazines > BAR > May/June 2003

One of the most astounding inscriptions to surface in recent years records a donation of three shekels to the Temple of the Lord (Beyt Yhwh) in Jerusalem. It is written on a broken piece of pottery (called an ostracon) and dates somewhere between the ninth and seventh centuries B.C.E. Another ostracon, apparently from the same hoard (the handwriting is the same), is a widow’s petition for part of her deceased husband’s estate—to which, however, she was not entitled under Biblical law. Both ostraca surfaced on the antiquities market and are in the private collection of Shlomo Moussaieff of London. […]

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Footnotes

See Hershel Shanks, “Three Shekels for the Lord,” BAR 23:06.

See “Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due” BAR 27:02 and “Israeli Scholar Bares His Fangs—Again,” BAR 29:01.)

Endnotes

Pierre Bordreuil, Felice Israel and Dennis Pardee, “Deux Ostraca Paleo-Hebreux de la Collection Sh. Moussaieff,” Semitica 46 (1997), p. 49.

Frank Moore Cross of Harvard, P. Kyle McCarter of Johns Hopkins University and André Lemaire of the Sorbonne.

Israel Eph’al and Joseph Naveh, “Remarks on the Recently Published Moussaieff Ostraca,” Israel Exploration Journal 49 (1998), p. 269.

Elisha Qimron, “New Hebrew Inscriptions: Their Linguistic Origin,” Leshonenu 61 (1998), p. 181.

Angelika Berlejung and Andreas Schüle, “Erwägungen zu den neuen Ostraka aus der Sammlung Moussaieff,” Zeitschrift für Althebräistic 11 (1998), pp. 68–73.

“Veuve sans enfants dans le royaume Juda,” Zeitschrift Für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1999).