Not Pontius Pilate's ring after all?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Pontius Pilate’s Ring Reexamined. Scholars contend Roman ring not connected to famous prefect (Nathan Steinmeyer).

This essay has a good brief summary of the background and issues. The underlying article by Werner Eck and Avner Ecker is in ‘Atiqot 110 (2023) (current issue):

Not a “Signet Ring” of Pontius Pilatus (pp. 89–96)
Werner Eck and Avner Ecker

Keywords: Roman Judea, finger ring, Pontius Pilatus, Roman administration, Latin, Greek, epigraphy

Gideon Foerster’s excavations at Herodium in 1968/69 yielded a simple ring, which was published only in 2018. The inscription on the ring was read as Πιλάτο(υ), i.e., ‘of Pilate.’ Various interpretations were offered for the inscription, all generally linking the ring directly or indirectly to Pilate. This paper shows that, apart from the problematic reading, everything we know about the Roman administration in the provinces speaks against such an assumption, especially the use of the Greek language in an administrative context in the first half of the first century. Alternative readings for the letters and other ways to understand them are discussed.

The pdf of the article is open-access (free).

PaleoJudaica posts on the discovery and discussion of the ring are here and here.

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