2,500-year-old potsherd bearing name of Persian King Darius found in Israel

A 2,500-year-old potsherd found by visitors at Tel Lachish bears a brief inscription with the name of the Persian king Darius the Great, the father of King Ahasuerus—the biblical Achashverosh from the story of Purim. The inscribed sherd may represent a note acknowledging the dispatching or receipt of goods. 

In December 2022, Eylon Levy, former i24NEWS anchor and current international media advisor to Israeli President Isaac Herzog, visited the Tel Lachish National Park with a friend and chanced upon a small potsherd with some inscribed letters. When they reported it to the Israel Antiquities Authority, the ostracon was examined in the advanced analytical laboratory and studied by Saar Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Dr. Haggai Misgav of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 

“When I picked up the ostracon and saw the inscription, my hands shook," said Levy. “I looked left and right for the cameras, because I was sure someone was playing an elaborate prank on me.” To the experts' astonishment, it turned out to be a rare find furnishing historic evidence for the Persian royal administration at Lachish in the Achaemenid period, at the turn of the fifth century BCE.

The Aramaic inscription on the fired potsherd reads “Year 24 of Darius,” dating it to 498 BCE. The short text records the name of the Persian king Darius the Great (Darius I), the father of Ahasuerus—also known as the biblical Achashverosh from the Book of Esther, which is read annually on the Jewish holiday of Purim. This is the first discovery of an inscription bearing Darius the Great's name found anywhere in Israel. During his long reign (522–486 BCE), the Persian Achaemenid Empire expanded, reaching its greatest extent under his son Hishrash (Ahasuerus, Xerxes in Greek), who ruled most of the ancient world. 

According to Ganor and Misgav, “the British Archaeological Expedition that carried out excavations at Tel Lachish in the 1930s uncovered an elaborate administrative building from the Persian period, built on top of the podium of the destroyed palace-fort of the Judean kings. The Persian-era residence extended over a large area and comprised elaborate halls and courtyards with a majestic columned portico entrance in Persian style. Today, only the pillar bases remain in place on the mound as the British expedition dismantled the remains of the elaborate Persian building in order to excavate the underlying Judean palace.” 

“It’s amazing that visitors to the site come across such a rare inscription 'reviving' the Persian King Darius known to us from the sources!” says Eli Escuzido, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority. “His son King Ahasuerus, who ruled 'from India to Cush', could never have imagined that we would find evidence of his father in Israel 2,500 years after the dramatic events in his royal court!”