Image Details

FROM GABRIEL BARKAY, “THE PRIESTLY BENEDICTION ON SILVER PLAQUES FROM KETEF HINNOM IN JERUSALEM,” TEL AVIV 19.2 (1992)

SILVER BLESSINGS. Standing only 1 inch tall, this miniature silver scroll (Amulet 1) contains one of the earliest Hebrew inscriptions ever uncovered. In 1979, archaeologist Gabriel Barkay and his team found this scroll and another smaller silver scroll—both of which date to the eighth–sixth centuries B.C.E.—in a burial cave at Ketef Hinnom in Jerusalem. In antiquity, they would have been worn as amulets. This drawing shows the first scroll before it was unrolled.