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Details
LOT 0174
Byzantine Lead Plaque with Menorah Inscribed by Jakob the Scribe
5TH-6TH CENTURY A.D.
3 in. (94 grams, 74 mm).
Fish-shaped lead plaque with low-relief stamped panel, menorah and legend; impression from a wine amphora stamp, rectangular with a raised rim in the name of Jakob the Scribe: ΕΙΑ - ΚΟY / ΛΙΛ - ΕΒΑ (retrograde); seven-branched menorah between a shofar (right) and lulav (palm frond) and an etrog (yellow citron). [No Reserve]
Provenance
From the collection of a London antiquarian, formed since the 1980s.
This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D’Amato.
Literature
For a bronze stamp from Sardis with the Menorah between a bunch of grapes and a palm branch, now in the British Museum under inventory no.1888, 0511. 3.; cf. similar stamp with similar design in Nomos AG Auction 20 (10th July 2020) lot 396.
Footnotes
The first word is the name Iacobus' (Jakob) and the second word (Λιλεβα) is likely derived from the Latin libellarius (scribe or notary), which was borrowed by Hebrew as ‘לבלר ’ (‘liblar’).The latter term is closer in meaning to the medieval ‘clerk’, than to the typical Hebrew word for scribe, ‘סופר’ (‘sofer’).
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LOT 0174
Byzantine Lead Plaque with Menorah Inscribed by Jakob the Scribe
Sold for (Inc. bp): £3,120
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