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These days , most receipts are made of paper , but about 2,000 eld ago , an important fiscal track record was recorded on a much ponderous material : Harlan Stone .
Archaeologists found the inscribed cogent evidence - of - leverage at the archaeologic land site of the City of David in Jerusalem . The hand - size of it sway — the fragmented lid of an ossuary , or burial chest of drawers — has seven lines of partly preserved text that name people ’s name calling and sums of money . These letters and turn are likely the record of financial activity , perhaps of defrayal for prole or mass who owe money , according to a raw study print in the journal’Atiqot .
The 3.5-inch-long (9 centimeters) inscribed stone with the financial record.
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The stone was found in a debris pile during a 2016 salvage excavation on Pilgrimage Road , a main thoroughfare frequently traveled at the time . Around the good turn of the first millenary , when Jerusalem and the surrounding region were a province of theRoman Empire , this road was probable a commercial hub , according to previous finds of gem weights and measure tabular array that were potential part of ancient commerce . The route extended about a third of a mile ( 600 time ) , connecting Jerusalem ’s city logic gate to the gate of the Temple Mount and the Second Temple , which the Romans ruin in A.D. 70 .
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A rendering of the pilgrimage road in Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period (516 B.C. to A.D. 70).
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Four other Hebrew inscriptions pen on stone , similar for having name followed by numbers , have been found in the area , but this is the first of its kind from Jerusalem , the researchers state . The eccentric of script and Harlan Fiske Stone , as well as its law of similarity to the other stone , helped the archaeologist date it to between the first century B.C. and the first 100 A.D.
It ’s probable that whoever craft the Hebrew cursive carving used a sharp tool on the tophus lid , the researchers tot up .
