A New Assemblage of ‘Private’ Stamped Jar Handles from the Mordot Arnona Excavations, Jerusalem

The site of Mordot Arnona is located c. 750 m northeast of Ramat Raḥel, on the eastern outskirts of the Arnona neighborhood of Jerusalem. Recent salvage excavations at the site showed that in the late eighth and the first half of the seventh century BCE, Mordot Arnona held great significance in the physical and political landscape of the area south of Jerusalem, serving as an administrative center, as evidenced by its monumental structures and the dozens of stamped jar handles. In this paper we present for the first time a rare corpus of 17 jar handles bearing ‘private’ stamp impressions, one of the largest exposed in excavations in the region of Judah, alongside 124 lmlk stamped jar handles and 33 handles incised with concentric circles. Furthermore, we discuss their role, function and significance in Judah’s administration system on the eve of Sennacherib’s campaign.