Funerary Inscription of Uzziah, King of Judea. A tombstone (tablet), or the (narrow) side of a sarcophagus (a stone coffin) that was sawed off in antiquity, inscribed in Aramaic: “Leha Hitit Tami Uzziah Melech Yehuda VeLo LeMafteach" =

"Hither were brought / the bones of Uzziah / king of Judah/ Do not open!"

"לכה התית טמי עוזיה מלך יהודה ולא למפתח”

It marked, during the first century AD, the place (now unknown) where the bones of King Uzziah (who ruled Judea in the 8^th century BCE) were reinterred.

According to the Book of Chronicles II 26,23 (in the Bible), King Uzziah, “slept with his fathers in the burial field of the kings, because they said he was a leper”. In the Book of Kings it is said about Uzziah (who is also called Azariah there): "And Azariah lay with his ancestors and they buried him with his ancestors in the City of David."

The removal of Uzziah’s remains from the original burial place may have been connected to the expansion of the city during Herod’s reign. It is also possible that the laws of "impurity" established at that time caused Uzziah's bones to be removed from his grave and moved to a new burial place, outside the City of David.

The inscription was purchased by the Russian church in Jerusalem in the late 19 century and was published for the first time by Prof. Sukenik of the Hebrew University.

It was purchased after the Six Day War by Teddy Kolek (the Major of Jerusalem, the founder of the Israel Museum and a collector of antiquities), from the Russian church located at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, and has been displayed in the Israel Museum ever since.

See an inscription in a similar style on which is engraved "Yehuda ben Yohanan ben Makik" (at the Golan Collection) which was probably inscribed by the same person.

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