BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

The Mysterious Inscribed Mug from Mount Zion

Cryptic text shows links to Dead Sea Scrolls

The inscribed stone cup from the Mount Zion excavations. UNC Charlotte Mount Zion Expedition / Shimon Gibson.

In an excavation just outside the southern wall of the Old City of Jerusalem, in the neighborhood known as Mount Zion, archaeologists working in 2009 happened upon an astonishing find: a fragmentary stone cup or mug from the first century CE. Although the mug itself is rather nondescript—vessels carved from the same soft limestone have been found in significant numbers throughout the region—this particular find bore a remarkable secret. What looked at first like mere scratches on the stone cup’s outer surface were actually a mysterious inscription, perhaps reflecting an incantation used in ritual practices performed within the household where it was discovered.

In the Summer 2025 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, dig director Shimon Gibson describes the discovery of the mug and its possible significance in his article “The Mysterious Mount Zion Mug.”

Gibson’s article begins by capturing the excitement surrounding the find. The team was excavating a lavish private home, complete with its own mikveh (ritual bath) and plastered bathing installation. “Shimon, you have to see this!” Gibson recalls hearing from one of his area supervisors. Above the mikveh, in a scattering of layered rubble, four stone fragments emerged. When reassembled, they formed most of a rather unassuming 6-inch-tall stone cup or mug. But what really caught the eye of the experts was the series of scratched markings within the parallel vertical facets ringing the mug. Once the fragments were cleaned, it became clear that the markings were in fact spidery writing covering much of the mug’s preserved outer surface.

Sideways view of the stone cup, showing the facets with inscribed letters. UNC Charlotte Mount Zion Expedition / Shimon Gibson.

The next task was to produce a careful drawing of all the visible inscribed letters, which totaled approximately 100. As the inscription slowly emerged during the drawing process, it became clear that significant effort and skill were required to make the inscription—likely several hours of careful work by a trained hand. But the mysterious nature of the stone cup’s inscription only deepened. It was anything but straightforward, and used a variety of unusual letter forms, some of which resembled the cryptic scripts known elsewhere only from the Dead Sea Scrolls. In addition, on a few facets the markings appeared to be little more than zigzagging lines. Decipherment of this text was going to prove challenging.

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The first scholar to attempt an interpretation was Stephen Pfann at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem. In 2010, he identified three distinct scripts: something akin to the Dead Sea Scrolls’ Cryptic A script; a similar cryptic script unique to this inscription but similar to certain characters from the scrolls; and a few words in more ordinary Jewish Aramaic script referencing the God of Israel. The clearest phrase on the stone cup reads “Adonai, shabti,” translated as “Lord, I have returned”; the text immediately following is less clear, but ultimately Pfann proposed that this might be a paraphrase of Psalm 26:8: Adonai ahabti me‘on beteka, “Lord I love the dwelling of your house,” with the verb ahabti (“I love”) here changed to shabti (“I have returned, repented”). He also noted that the zigzag markings could be interpreted as the letter tsade repeated over and over, and proposed that it should be seen as deriving from the divine title tseba’ot (“[Lord of] hosts”).

More recently, the inscription on the stone cup from Mount Zion has been studied anew by David Hamidović of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. There are some differences between his reading and that of Pfann; most notably, he reads the word shabti instead as shibti, “my seat/throne.” But Hamidović’s most important contribution is his comparison of this text to other amulets and incantation texts from the period. Gibson has surmised that such vessels—which, unlike pottery vessels, are not susceptible to ritual impurity—may have been used in handwashing or other ritual practices. An inscription such as the one found on this stone cup may therefore be connected to such practices, providing text to recite or perhaps even mnemonic or incantatory repetitions of letters that served as notation for chanting, especially when invoking the divine name.

Drawing, transcription, and transliteration of the stone cup’s inscription. UNC Charlotte Mount Zion Expedition / Shimon Gibson.

Accordingly, the cup itself may have been used to transport water from the house’s nearby cistern to its mikveh, with the inscribed text forming a part of the ritual framework surrounding this act.

In the first century CE, Jewish religious practices were closely intertwined with notions of ritual purity and sanctification. Given the challenges involved in procuring water in Jerusalem, it is not surprising that the transportation and use of water in ritual contexts would carry particular significance. The stone cup from Mount Zion provides a valuable glimpse into these ritual practices and the incantations and invocations that accompanied them.

For more on the stone cup from Mount Zion, read the article by Shimon Gibson entitled “The Mysterious Mount Zion Mug,” published in the Summer 2025 issue  of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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Private Lives of Jerusalem Elites Revealed in Mt. Zion Excavations

Daily Life in Ancient Israel

Biblical Bread: Baking Like the Ancient Israelites

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