Well-educated Grave Robbers

This is the tomb of […]yahu who is over the house. No silver or gold is here but (his bones) and the bones of his Amma (=wife). Cursed be the man who opens this

THE BURIAL INSCRIPTION FROM THE TOMB OF THE ROYAL STEWARD

Thus said the Lord God of Hosts: Go in to see that steward, Shebna, in charge of the palace: What have you here, and whom have you here, that you have hewn out a tomb for yourself here?  O you who have hewn your tomb on high; O you who have hollowed out for yourself an abode in the cliff!

Isaiah 22:15–16

In the picture: This inscription from the end of the First Temple period, found in the nineteenth century in the village of Silwan, mentions a senior official (“who is over the house”) whose name, which was damaged, ends in “yahu.” Scholars believe the man was “Shebna who is over the house,” who lived at the time of Isaiah, and who apparently came from the kingdom of Israel, which had ceased existence in that same period. We learn from the inscription about the belief in the magical power of a curse, the fact that grave robbers knew how to read, and the custom of burying costly objects in ancient Jewish tombs.