A Shipment of Gold

This is a record of a shipment of a type or quality of gold named for Ophir, a distant but unidentified source of gold mentioned in 1 Kings 9:28 and elsewhere. “Beth Horon” can refer to the city of that name (identified as a Levite administrative center in Joshua 21:22) or to the house—that is, temple—of the Canaanite deity Horon. Depending on the meaning of the prefix le-, the gold either belongs to Beth Horon— meaning it was sent by Beth Horon to an unspecified location—or it was sent to Beth Horon from an unspecified location. The ostracon was found at Tell Qasile, a site in Tel Aviv. It is dated to the end of the eighth or early seventh century BCE.