Zev Radovan

Robbed from a grave, this limestone slab bears the Hebrew inscription “Blessed be your stonecutter! May he lay old people to rest here!” The craftsman who carved the burial chambers thus requested a blessing for himself and expressed his hope that only elderly, and not young, people would be buried in this tomb. The purchaser of this slab was told it came from Khirbet el-Kom, on the West Bank; the script and soft chalk clearly match those of late-eighth-century B.C. tomb inscriptions discovered by archaeologist William Dever at Khirbet el-Kom in 1967.