Masada Lots

During Yigael Yadin's excavations at Masada in 1963–1965, among hundreds of inscribed potsherds (ostraca), the team found a small group of eleven or twelve, each bearing a single name or nickname in Hebrew letters, which Yadin believed were written by the same hand. One of them reads "ben Yair," the name of the rebel commander Eleazar ben Yair.

Yadin linked them to Josephus's account (War 7.395–397) that on the last night the defenders chose by lot ten men to kill the rest, and then one of the ten to kill the others before taking his own life. The identification is famous but uncertain: the number does not match exactly, and other scholars suggest the sherds were used for rations or guard duty, like other ostraca found on the site. Either way, they are among the most personal objects left by the last defenders of Masada.