Volume IV of the 5-volume series of books, "The Renewed Archaeological Excavations at Lachish (1973-1994)" (abbreviated herein as RAELv4), contains a list of every handle found at Biblical Lachish (Tell ed-Duweir).  However, in the words of the authors (David Ussishkin, Gabriel Barkay, & Andrew G. Vaughn), there have been "discrepancies in the number of reported stamped jar handles", & "the material from the British excavations is now dispersed in 8 collections in 7 different cities on 3 continents."  Then they conclude by saying, "the complexity of the situation makes the present effort prone to omissions & duplications."

One example of this is with Find Number 7163.  Most handles found during Starkey's excavations in the 1930s were each assigned a unique serial number, yet in the RAELv4 list one F. No. 7163 is at the University of Leeds (RAEL #62, an H4C), another F. No. 7163 is at the Weingreen Museum of Biblical Antiquities (RAEL #79, also an H4C), & a third F. No. 7163 is at the British Museum (RAEL #247, an x4L)!  Olga Tufnell originally reported F. No. 7163 as being "HBRN class ii" (i.e., an H4L), so it's possible that none of those 3 are the real F. No. 7163, but then again, any one of them could be correct, or maybe the excavators repeated the number by mistake!

The information presented on this web page was derived from these reports by Ussishkin, Barkay, & Vaughn, so while some of their errors have been corrected, some may still be lurking & new ones may have crept in as typos or misunderstandings by G.M. Grena.  If you spot any, please report them via E-mail to the address shown in the menu to the left.

Summary of Stamp Stratification

• Levels 7-6 = period of Canaanites & Joshua's conquest (debatable)
• Levels 5-4 = period of Rehoboam's fortification & Uzziah's earthquake (debatable)
• Level 3 (L3) = period preceding Sennacherib's conquest
• Level 2 (L2) = period preceding Babylonian conquest
• Level 1 (L1) = Persian-Greek era (no significant Roman-Byzantine-Moslem occupation)
• D/X = surface (the "D" stands for Duweir)

Most of the unrecorded ones were probably surface finds

This table only includes quantities from classifiable stamps as they were first published using Lemaire's classifications, which are subject to error since relatively few photos have been published; at least 2 errors have already been detected & corrected in the statistics below using the typology developed for this website (e.g., an S4L was reported as an "S Ia" [RAEL #313], & an H2U was reported as an "H IIb" [RAEL #404-68]).  These quantities are subject to change in the future when the respective museums publish photos of them to allow independent confirmation of types.

Incised Circle marks are also included since there appears to be some confusion in the reports (1 with an H2D, 1 with an M2D, & 2 on unstamped handles).  All 4 were reported by Diringer in PEQ 7-1941 as an M2x, x2x, & 2 unstamped, but only an H2D was reported in RAELv4 (#41) with a brief acknowledgement of 3 total.  It's probably the x2x reported by Diringer, but it may be a 5th handle.

Note:  4 other handles were reported as having Lemaire's "Z Ia" stamp; however, without photos it's impossible to determine if these were actually Z4CI or Z4CY stamps.  1 of them was found on the surface (D/X); stratification was unrecorded for the other 3.  At least one of these 4 is definitely a Z4CI because its photo was published by Diringer in PEQ 7-1941, but it was not cross-referenced to a stratum.  The one listed above in Level 3 was found during Aharoni's excavations & was properly published.

Summary of Stamps

• 255 HBRN
• 009 MMST
• 055 SUKE
• 022 ZYF
• 000 Generic
• 074 cannot classify by inscription



• 001 cannot classify by icon
• 064 2-winged
• 350 4-winged