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© Erich Lessing

A NEW TAKE ON AN OLD TRADITION. Nearly 4,000 years after the last Chalcolithic bone box was filled, the practice of interring the bones of the dead in ossuaries was revived by the Jews of Judea in the first century C.E. These ossuaries, typically crafted from Jerusalem limestone and of smaller dimensions than their Chalcolithic predecessors, were sometimes ornately decorated with floral and geometric designs and were often inscribed in Aramaic with the name of the person whose bones were deposited inside.