Image Details

Courtesy of André Lemaire

Inscribed ivory pomegranate, seen from above. The projections at the top represent the fruit’s petals. Letters, incised in a circle around the pomegranate’s lower, partially broken, bulbous portion, translate as “Belonging to the Tem[ple of the Lor]d, holy to the priests.” The shapes of the letters indicate that this inscription is approximately contemporaneous with the Siloam inscription. Only 1.68 inches high and 0.83 inches in diameter, the Pomegranate may have topped a scepter, or perhaps served as an ornament in Solomon’s Temple, or as an altar decoration or as a finial on a throne or cultic box.