Some 340 Aramaic ostraca of the Persian and Hellenistic periods have been excavated at 32 sites in Israel, from Yokneam in the north to Eilat in the south, with Arad and Beersheba being the main contributory sites. By far, however, the largest cache of texts is what has come to be known as "the Idumean ostraca". These did not come from formal excavations but began to appear on the antiquities market in 1991. Since then, some 2,000 ostraca have...