Ossuary Inscribed with the name Mariame in Greek

By the end of the Second Temple period a custom of secondary burial developed, known in the sources as “bone gathering.” The deceased was initially buried for a year, and the bones were then gathered by family members and laid to rest in a stone ossuary in the family burial caves for secondary burial. The ossuaries were made by Jewish artisans and often were decorated with engravings of vegetal, architectural and geometrical motifs. Some ossuaries bear inscriptions in hebrew, Aramaic or Greek, including the deceased’s name and occasionally details such as family genealogy, origin and occupation