Image Details

Bronze amulet. Only two inches long, this sheet of bronze was discovered, rolled-up, under the threshold of a doorway in the east wall of the Meroth synagogue. In its 26-line Aramaic inscription, the amulet owner, Yossai bar Zenovia, makes an impassioned plea to God to give him the same power over “this village” (presumably Meroth) that God himself wields over the world. Perhaps Yossai bar Zenovia was in competition with another villager for a position of offficial authority in Meroth.