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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
The object in Fig. 1 is a circular medallion of sheet gold embossed with Jewish symbols recently presented to the Jewish Museum, Woburn House, Upper Woburn Place. In the centre is the seven-branched candlestick familiar on Jewish monuments of antiquity. With it are associated, as usual, the Shofár or Trumpet of horn, and the luláb or ritual sheaf of palm leaves, etc., used on the Festival of Tabernacles. The representation of the luláb here is somewhat angular, so that it is not easy to recognise. For such medallions cf. Reifenberg, Denkmäler der Jüdischen Antike pl. 56 and for the symbols, Frey, Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum.
Above the symbols is inscribed in Greek letters of late date: |ΠΙΝΝωΝΑ. ‘ Ex voto of Jacob the Leader (?) the setter of pearls.’ The word ἀρχηγὁς may perhaps be used in the sense of , the president of the community, but such a use is unfamiliar; indeed the word does not seem to occur in Byzantine Greek. Mr. Tod has kindly suggested that it might be the dedicant's alternative name, like Dorcas—Tabitha, since such a name as “ΑρΧων is possible, πιννωνᾶ will be the genitive of a word πιννωνᾶς, also an unexampled word, but one which appears correctly formed. The strange genitive in -ᾶ follows correctly a usage in Byzantine Greek in names of trades ending in -ᾶς.
2 Olsson, B., Die Gewerbenamen auf-âs in den Papyri, in Aegyptus, VI, 247–9.Google Scholar