BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Early Jewish Bread Stamp Found Near Akko

Bible and archaeology news

In 2011, Excavators with the Israel Antiquities Authority unearthed a 1,500-year-old Jewish bread stamp from a small Byzantine settlement near the ancient port city of Akko. The sixth-century clay stamp, excavated from the small site of Horbat Uza just east of Akko, bears an image of the seven-branched Temple menorah, while its handle is engraved with several Greek letters that likely spelled the name of the Jewish baker who used the stamp to mark his goods. “The stamp is important because it proves that a Jewish community existed in the settlement of Uza in the Christian-Byzantine period,” said Danny Syon, one of the excavation’s directors. “Due to the geographical proximity of Horbat Uza to Acre [Akko], we can speculate that the settlement supplied kosher baked goods to the Jews of Acre in the Byzantine period.”

Excavators with the Israel Antiquities Authority have unearthed a 1,500-year-old Jewish bread stamp from a small Byzantine settlement near the ancient port city of Akko.

This story originally appeared in Bible History Daily in January, 2012.