- Measurements and Technique: 67.5 x 29.5 x 40.5 cm. Chip carved.
- Provenance: Unknown.
- Description: Inner ledge on two sides. Low feet.
- Ornamentation:
Front: Two metopes in zigzag line. Triglyph of 23-leaved upright branch (see Rahmani, Nos. 377, 406, 618, 619). In each metope, a 24-petalled rosette encircled by zigzag line. Anthemion in the four corners of each metope. Additional small circles above rosettes.
Right: Plain, inscription.
- Lid: Flat, broken.
- Inscription: "bwt`"? "Buta", or "k/b.wnn"
Comments: Inventory No. VI:8 (?), but surprisingly, without mention of the inscription. The ornamentation is executed very carefully, in contrast to the inscription.
The proposed reading of the inscription as 'Buta', which is far from certain, depends on the interpretation of the final letter as an 'aleph (for similar ones, see Reich, p. 73, Fig. 2; Rahmani, No. 797; Ilan, 1996, p. 67, Fig. 3.21, the final letter).
In rabbinical literature, there is mention of a Shammite named Baba ben Buta, a contemporary of Herod the Great and of Hillel and Shammai (M. Ker. 6:3; BT Beza 20a; BT BB 4a), who probably belonged to the well-known Baba family of Josephus (Ant. 15:260, 263-266; cf. Deines, 1997, p. 179)[1]. See also Rahmani, No. 41, where "bwtwn" appears twice. As donor of part of the synagogue building in Kafr Kanna, Yose bar Tanchum bar Buta ("bwth") appears on an Aramaic mosaic inscription from the third or fourth century C.E. His brother Rabbi Yudan bar [Tan]chum [ba]r [Buta] is probably mentioned in a similar inscription from Sippori (Hüttenmeister and Reeg, pp. 246-249, 403).
Zitat aus: Fritz/Deines, Catalogue of the Jewish Ossuaries in the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology, IEJ 49, 1999, 222-241.
[1] Rabbi Yehuda ben Baba may aIso have belonged to the same family (M. Er. 2:4-5; M. Yev.16:3,5,7; M. Ed. 6:1; 8:2), a tannaitic sage who flourished in the first decades of the second century C.E. and was killed after the Bar Kokhba War (T. Sota 13:4, cf. Sem. 8:9).
Ossuary No. 4 drawing on inscription
Ossuary No. 4 inscription on right side
Ossuary No. 4 front