Nahshon Sneh

The ostracon was discovered in one of the casemate rooms of the 7th century B.C. fortress. On it may be seen three vertical columns of writing. The first, contains the hieratic numerals 90 and 100, and the numerals 100–800 in units of hundreds. Each numeral in this column is followed by the Hebrew word garah, the smallest ancient unit of weight, equivalent approximately to one-half gram. The remaining two vertical columns are extremely blurred, but also consist of hieratic numerals. At the bottom of the ostracon, the hieratic numeral 100 appears, followed by what seems to be an incorrectly written gerah. In the author’s view this writing is a scribal exercise.