ABSTRACT
In September 1945 members of the Museum of Jewish Antiquities of the Hebrew University excavated a burial chamber near the Talpioth suburb of Jerusalem. The Talpioth ossuaries are by no means the first from this region to have quickened the pulse of newspaper-reporters. Nearly ninety years ago the French scholar Charles Clermont-Ganneau reported that he had recovered a number of ossuaries from a burial cave on the Mount of Olives near Bethany. The discoveries provide a realistic perspective on the finds at Talpioth and it may be stated at the outset that almost all commentators have attacked the premises from which Sukenik drew his very daring conclusions. A glance through the collection of Preisendanz will show the enormous range of such combinations. What is significant for present purposes is that the ιου of the Talpioth ossuaries clearly belong to such a series and may therefore be regarded as a variant on ιαω.
