Biblical Archaeology Review 39:6, November/December 2013

The pentagram or five-pointed star was a popular

symbol in the Hellenistic world as a magical
religious symbol that had an apotropaic function
(warding off evil). In the second century B.C.E. the
pentagram became significant in Judea. For
centuries, beginning in the late eighth century
B.C.E., Judah would stamp jar handles as a mark of
fiscal administrationperhaps as a governmental
approval of the contents of the vessel or other
certification.

In the Hellenistic period, the pentagram was

adopted for this purpose. In ancient vowel-less
Hebrew, Jerusalem is spelled with five consonants:
;YRLM. When the pentagram was adopted as a
fiscal stamp on the handle of pottery vessels in
Judea, the five letters of Jerusalem in ancient
Hebrew script (the script used before the
Babylonian destruction of 586 B.C.E.) were stamped
between the five points of the star.
In a recent study, Efrat Bocher and Oded Lipschits
of Tel Aviv University identified six different
types of such seal impressions on pottery handles,
all with a pentagram and the five letters of
Jerusalem between the points.1