490 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 



2,820 object drawings were added to our files, besides the 768 which 

 were recorded in our nniseum book. 



STAMPED JAR HANDLES 



It was probably in part due to this systematic scrutiny of pot- 

 sherds that we found during the past season a dozen or more jar 

 handle seal inscriptions and graffiti on pottery. Two bear the name 

 of the deity in the form of " Yah " or " Yahu." One bears the con- 

 sonants MZH, probably referring to the feast of unleavened bread. 

 These three seal impressions resemble similar ones found by Sellin 

 and Watzinger at Jericho. Still another, very different from the 

 last mentioned, bears the consonants MZP, and is, therefore, a com- 

 panion piece of the MZP (Mizpah?) stamp found in 1927. There 

 are a number of jar handle stamps with a flying eagle and the well- 

 known legend " For the King. Hebron." On one impression which 

 bears the simple legend " For the King " (le-Melek), the tail feathers 

 are so clearly indicated that the stamp maker's intention to represent 

 a bird and not a flying scroll can no longer be doubted. The graffiti 

 are of some epigraphical importance on account of the forms of the 

 Hebrew letters employed, but must be reserved for a separate dis- 

 cussion. Practically all the jar handle stamps were found in the 

 II and I Iron Age levels. Unless a closer study of our detailed 

 records of the ceramic context should oblige me to modify my present 

 conclusions, these jar handle inscriptions belong to the period between 

 900 and 600 B. C. 



THE NECROPOLIS 



The possible whereabouts of the Tell en-Nasbeh necropolis has for 

 the writer been a subject of considerable thought during the past 

 three years. There are numerous empty tombs in the rock terraces 

 on the slopes of the Tell, but all of them appear, judged by their 

 structure, to be isolated tombs of no great age. It seemed clear that 

 for so populous a city there must have been a general burial place 

 somewhere in the vicinity of the Tell. During the last month of the 

 1929 excavations I undertook a systematic search of the ridges and 

 slopes contiguous to our city mound, and with most gratifying 

 results. On the western slope of a ridge north of the Tell I ob- 

 served in the slightly exposed bedrock what seemed to be the remains 

 of a much weathered cutting. Removal of the accumulated debris 

 soon brought to light a shallow forecourt, chiseled out of the lime- 

 stone, and at its east end an upright doorstone was found still in 

 place, rabbeted into the stone frame of a tomb entrance. Close to it, 

 but on the north side of the sunken forecourt, was a smaller door- 

 stone, fitted like a lid into the frame of another opening. (PI. 6.) 



