- Measurements and Technique: 59 x 27 x 32 cm. Finely incised.
- Provenance: Mukhmas.
- Description: Inner ledge on three sides. Low feet. Corners broken and repaired. Red wash on front.
- Ornamentation:
Front: Incised horizontal lines and semi-circles. Two encircled six-petalled rosettes with zigzags in and between the petals, fill interstices. In the outer corners of metopes, zigzags in the form of a menorah with five branches (Rahmani, p. 50) or stylised roots or branches of palm trees (ibid., No. 81.188; Figueras, pp. 43-45, and PI. 11:412). Between the rosettes, there are semi-circles instead of the triglyph; in the lower part there are two zigzag lines between horizontal lines. Above is a kind of column, its upper part surrounded by semi-circles. Perhaps it should be interpreted as a stylised palm tree (for similar ones, see Figueras, PIs. 11:150, 492; 32:492; Jacoby, card No. 36A; Rahmani, No. 757).
- Lid: Gabled (?), now missing (see comments).
- Marks: Incised letter "h" on front through ornament.

Comments: Inventory No. VI:6. Found together with two other ossuaries (Inventory Nos. VI:5 and 7), one only fragmentary, in a single tomb[1]. Dalman also reported two Herodian lamps found in the same tomb and three fragments of Roman glass 'tearbottles', therefore the ossuary may be dated to the Early Roman period.
Dalman mentioned (in the inventory and in Dalman, 1914, p. 135) two other marks: the letters "b" and "s", at the gable of the lid, which is now missing.

[1] For ossuary No. VI:5 (no longer in the possession of the Institute), Dalman recorded the inscription ("sm´wn l(wj)", but no ornamentation; this inscription is published in Dalman, 1914, pp. 135-136, and PI. XL:2 (see also Klein, p. 56, No. 165; CIJ 11, p. 230, No. 1191). The fragment (Inventory No. VI:7) must have been ornamented ('vorn Viereck mit Kreuz') with a mark, in the form of a mirror image of N, on the right side (Dalman, 1914, p. 135); for similar marks, see Rahmani, Nos. 351, 477, 478, 504, 505.

Zitat aus: Fritz/Deines, Catalogue of the Jewish Ossuaries in the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology, IEJ 49, 1999, 222-241.

Ossuary No. 3 front