Name carved on a stone bowl 2100 years ago

Archaeologists in Jerusalem’s City of David, Israel, discovered a piece of stone bowl dating back 2100 years. The piece contained the name “Horcanus” inscribed in Hebrew on its surface.

Part of the bowl with the name Horkanus (by Clara Amit)

The bowl with the carved name, discovered under the site of an ancient mikve ritual bath in the City of David’s Givati site, is dated to the Hasmonean period, about 2100 years ago. Stone bowls of this kind were commonly used by Jews in the period. According to the archaeologists the name “Horkanus” was very common, and there were famous figures with this name at the time, such as  Yochanan Horkanus, who was Mattathias the Hasmonean’s grandson and the governor of Judea, as well as Yochanan Horkanus II, who was the son of Hasmonean King Alexander Yannai and Queen Shlomtzion.

Excavation site in Jerusalem (by The Jerusalem Post)

The site contains a number of significant archaeological finds from different periods. The bowl was found near the site of a discovery last year which appears to be evidence of the Greek Acra citadel, the famous stronghold that Antiochus IV used in the second century BC to control Jerusalem and monitor activity on the Temple Mount.

(after The Jerusalem Post, Clara Amit, Arutz Sheva, Israel Antiquities Authority)

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