Daedalus in Jerusalem

A unique Hebrew inscription discovered in 2018 continues to excite epigraphers and historians of the Second Temple period. Dated to the Herodian period (late first century BCE–first century CE), it provides one of the first archaeologically attested full spellings of the name Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) as it is pronounced in Hebrew to this day.1 However, it is not the only remarkable thing about the inscription. The short, three-line inscription, which is incised on a limestone column, reads hnnyh br dydlos myrwšlym, “Hananiah son of Daedalus, from Jerusalem.” Who was this Hananiah? And even more intriguingly: Why did this Jewish man identify […]