Ilan Sztulman/Tel Miqne-Ekron Excavation Project

Tools of the trade for a seventh-century B.C.E. farmer were found hidden in a storejar below the floor of the same work/storage room that contained the krater. Six of the eight recovered iron implements are seen here: A pair of two-headed plows (left and center rear), a single-headed plow (right rear), a knife (center, leaning against the single-headed plow) and a sickle blade (right, in front of the knife). Just behind the meter stick is a second blade. Their owner, the excavators believe, hid the tools just before the Babylonians attacked Ekron in 603 B.C.E. He never reclaimed them; perhaps he died in the attack or was exiled from his home city afterwards.