Summary: Archaeologists in Israel have found numerous jars containing buried treasure. This ancient practice also informs our understanding of the Bible.
The precious sons of Zion, worth their weight in fine gold, how they are regarded as earthen pots, the work of a potter’s hands! – Lamentations 4:2 (ESV)
Ceramic Jars to Store Valuables
Several years ago, a television program was on the air entitled The Rockford Files starring James Garner (NBC). Rockford was a seat-of-the-pants private investigator who preferred nonviolent means to solve his cases. However, occasionally he would find it necessary to protect himself from the bad guys, whereupon he would retrieve his pistol from its hiding place—his cookie jar!
People have often used ceramic pots and jars as receptacles to store valuables. Ceramic vessels have several traits that enhance their use for such storage purposes. They are generally watertight, especially if the opening is sealed in some way. The ceramic construction can also protect the contents from bugs and other vermin. Furthermore, the vessel’s rigidity generally prevents the contents from being crushed (unless, of course, the vessel itself is crushed).
It was common in many societies to bury valuables in jars either inside their dwellings or in open fields, especially during times of unrest. Such practices appear in passing in some biblical episodes. Perhaps most notable are two from Jesus’ teachings. In Matthew 13:44, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to “a treasure hidden in a field.” The other is in Matthew 25 when the slothful servant hid the talent in the ground (Matt. 25:18, 25). Josephus later narrates that during the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, Jewish citizens “stored [their gold and silver and precious articles] underground” (War 7.113-15).
Dead Sea Scrolls Preserved in Jars
The whole Dead Sea Scrolls scenario is a popularly known example of using jars to store valuables. Not all of the documents in the eleven caves were stored in jars,1 but many were. Such storage probably contributed significantly to preserve them by moderating both the temperature and humidity, and protecting them from vermin and insects.
There is a question of why the scrolls were in the caves in the first place. One proposal is that the caves were the regular repositories for the community’s library. An alternative postulates that the caves were repositories for the scrolls’ safekeeping in the face of the imminent Roman campaign beginning in AD 68. It would appear that the community expected to retrieve them when the crisis passed.2
One of the Dead Sea Scrolls—usually called the “Copper Scroll” (3Q15)—has elicited quite a stir in that it describes places with huge amounts of buried and hidden silver and gold. Treasure hunters have pored over the contents of the Copper Scroll in the futile attempt to locate these treasures. It is unclear, however, if there is/was a historical basis for the description or if the discussion is purely fictional.3
(See the Thinker Update investigating who wrote and hid the Dead Sea scrolls.)
Spectacular Discoveries of Buried Treasure
Roland de Vaux’s excavation of Qumran (the accompanying site of the scroll caves) uncovered three jars that preserved hoards of “561 pieces of silver preserved in three pots containing respectively 223, 185, and 153 pieces.”4 These had either been buried in the collapse of the site or had been deliberately deposited at a later time for safekeeping.5
In another example of buried treasure, Vergil, writing in his first century BC Aeneid about the immediate aftermath of the Trojan War, narrates that Dido, founder and queen of Carthage, had a husband who had been killed by her brother, Pygmalion. In a post-mortem vision, Dido sees her husband who reveals to her the source of “a mass of gold and silver, long buried” by which she would be able to escape Pygmalion’s wrath.6
Quite a few examples of vessels with “precious metals” inside them have come to light from various places around the Mediterranean, both in excavation and by accident. A particularly interesting example came from 11th/ 10th century BC Dor apparently from a storage pit (see photo above). The vessel contained seventeen packages of silver wrapped in linen, the average weight of each being ca. 490.5 grams (=15.77 troy oz), for a total of 8.5 kilograms (=273.3 troy oz) of silver!7 (See how the discovery of a trove of storage jars indicated a huge kingdom of Judah complex.)
Another example with more jewelry, however, embedded in its collection was from 7th century BC Ekron (see photo at top of article). The 1929 excavations by Elihu Grant at Tel Beth-Shemesh yielded a hoard of approximately 400 items of silver, gold, jewelry, and scarabs from the Late Bronze Age8 (ca. 1300-1200 BC; photo below).
Buried Treasure in the Bible
This treatment of valuables is part of the storyline when the LORD instructed Jeremiah to deposit the deeds of his recently purchased property in an earthenware jar for long time preservation (Jer. 32:14). The preservation was to impress upon Judah that the citizens would eventually be restored to the land from their exile and that real estate transactions would resume (v. 15). Obviously it was not the jar itself that was particularly important, but the contents.
‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware vessel, that they may last for a long time. For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.’ – Jeremiah 32:14-15 (ESV)
Thus, when Jesus uses the buried treasure imagery in his parables, he tapped into a practice that was quite common in the ancient world (and even into modern times, especially in societies that are frequently scenes of social unrest).9
Paul alludes to the practice of storing valuables inside ceramic jars, when he contrasts the implied value of the contents of the jars with the lack of value of the container. He accentuates the surpassing value of the gospel message which was to be carried into the world by mere human agents, thus minimizing his own significance: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Cor. 4:7).
Some have argued that Paul alludes to the mundane oil lamps that were common in the first century world, but Hughes suggests that there may be a historical, military background to Paul’s allusion (which would depict the same relative contrast of goods).10 He notes that Plutarch reported that the victorious Romans paraded part of their spoils of war over the Macedonians as follows: “After the waggons [sic] laden with armour there followed three thousand men carrying coined silver in seven hundred and fifty vessels, each of which contained three talents and was borne by four men…”11
Hughes suggests that this military image continues Paul’s “fondness for graphic similes taken from the spectacle of Roman triumph (see 2:14 and 1 Cor. 4:9), and it was very possibly his intention here to suggest a picture of the victorious Christ entrusting His riches to the poor earthen vessels of His human followers.”12
The Value in the Jar’s Contents
The pervasiveness of hiding wealth and things of value in ceramic jars and burying them in the earth, raised early concerns in archaeology. I have heard anecdotally that many early excavations in various places around the world suffered with a tendency for the local workers to bust open whole vessels hoping to retrieve the treasures in them.13 This practice, and especially the tendency for workers sometimes to pilfer valuable finds that they might uncover prompted many excavations to offer workers bakhshish (a tip, gratuity) when they discovered items of value from the excavations. Both Sir Leonard Woolley14 and Sir Mortimer Wheeler15 discuss incorporating the practice of paying bakhshish to curtail theft of goods.
Regardless, the reality of mundane vessels serving as repositories of valuables was an image that resonated with the people to whom the biblical narratives were originally written. For those audiences, the valuables were the contents of the jars—not the vessels themselves!16 Let’s keep on Thinking.
1 The bibliography for the Dead Sea Scrolls is huge and way beyond the purposes of this essay. For convenience and succinctness, however, see Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 25-29.
2 Magness, 34.
3 Magness, 25.
4 Roland de Vaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Schweich Lectures, 1959 (London: Oxford University, 1973), pp. 34-35.
5 de Vaux, 35.
6 As translated in Sarah Ruden (trans.), The Aeneid: Vergil (New Haven: Yale, 2008), 1: ll. 358-59 (p. 11).
7 Ephraim Stern, Dor: Ruler of the Seas. Rev. and Expanded (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2000), pp.360-62; plate X.4. The current value of the raw silver (13 October 2020 in the midst of the pandemic) is $24.27 per ounce and the Dor quantity would command a price of $6632.99!
8 See full discussion in Miriam Tadmor and Osnat Misch-Brandl, “The Beth Shemesh Hoard of Jewellery,” and Baruch Brandl, “Scarabs and Scaraboids from the Beth Shemesh Jewellery Hoard,” The Israel Museum News/ 1980 (Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 1981), pp. 71-79, and 80-82 respectively, and color photo on cover.
9 For an ethnographic reference to on-going practices, see W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book (London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1901), 136.
10 Philip E. Hughes, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians. New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962), 135-36.
11 As translated in Bernadotte Perrin (trans.), Plutarch’s Lives, vol. 6. Loeb Classical (Cambridge: Harvard, 1918), 443.
12 Hughes, 136.
13 I have searched diligently for actual documentation of this and have asked some of my archaeology colleagues about it, but thus far have no documentation to corroborate the statement. Given the local residents’ knowledge of the reality of such hoards, however, it would not be surprising that such breakage might have occurred.
14 Leonard Woolley, Digging Up the Past, 2d ed. (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1977 reprint from 1954): 31-34.
15 Mortimer Wheeler, Archaeology from the Earth (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1956): 176-77.
16 One significant value of archaeologically intact closed vessels is the opportunity to conduct residue analysis on their contents to discover how the vessels may have been used at the time of their deposition. Such work has concluded that so-called “pilgrim flasks” were at least sometimes vessels for cinnamon flavored wines and oils (see Owen Jarus, “Evidence of 3,000-Year-Old Cinnamon Trade Found in Israel.” Live Science [20 August 2013]; https://www.livescience.com/39011-cinnamon-trade-found-in-israel.html, and Margaret Serpico, “The Canaanite Amphorae Project,” Amarna Project [https://www.amarnaproject.com/pages/recent_projects/material_culture/ canaanite.shtml] “Traces of Cinnamon Found in 3,000-Year-Old Vessels.” Archaeology on-line [22 August 2013], https://www.archaeology.org/news/1237-130822-israel-cinnamon-spice-trade). Similar tests have been run on vessels known as bilbils which have occasionally yielded evidence of opiate derivatives (see Robert S. Merrillees, “Opium for the masses: How the Ancients Got High,” Odyssey 2.1 [1999]: 20-29, 58) whereas other bilbils had held precious oils (Zuzana Chovanec, Shlomo Bunimovitz, and Zvi Lederman, “Is There Opium Here? Analysis of Cypriot Base Ring Juglets from Tel Beth-Shemesh, Israel,” Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry 15.2 [2015]: 175-89).
TOP PHOTO: Jar with jewelry discovered at 7th century BC Ekron, Israel. (© Dale Manor, courtesy of Israel Museum)
NOTE: Not every view expressed by scholars contributing Thinker articles necessarily reflects the views of Patterns of Evidence. We include perspectives from various sides of debates on biblical matters so that readers can become familiar with the different arguments involved. – Keep Thinking!
