Pentagrams in Judea

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The pentagram or five-pointed star was a popular symbol in the Hellenistic world as a magical religious symbol that had an apotropaic function (warding off evil). In the second century B.C.E. the pentagram became significant in Judea. For centuries, beginning in the late eighth century B.C.E., Judah would stamp jar handles as a mark of fiscal administration—perhaps as a governmental approval of the contents of the vessel or other certification.

In the Hellenistic period, the pentagram was adopted for this purpose. In ancient vowel-less Hebrew, Jerusalem is spelled with five consonants: ירשלם; YRŠLM. When the pentagram was adopted as a fiscal stamp on the handle of pottery vessels in Judea, the five letters of Jerusalem in ancient Hebrew script (the script used before the Babylonian destruction of 586 B.C.E.) were stamped between the five points of the star.

In a recent study, Efrat Bocher and Oded Lipschits of Tel Aviv University identified six different types of such seal impressions on pottery handles, all with a pentagram and the five letters of Jerusalem between the points.¹

Although scholars long disagreed about the date of the pentagram stamps, it is now generally agreed that they date to the second half of the second century B.C.E. Until now, 111 handles with these pentagram stamps have been recovered: among others, 61 from Jerusalem and 34 from Ramat Rachel, which the authors identify as an administrative center of Jerusalem just 2.5 miles south of the city.

The authors suggest that the contents of the vessels with these stamps were sent to Jerusalem as donations to the Temple and to those assigned to the Temple’s restoration.