A cheap copper-alloy ring, dug up in the 1960s at Herodium, King Herod's fortress-palace in the Judaean Desert, bearing the image of a vessel and the Greek letters ΠΙΛΑΤΟ

A cheap copper-alloy ring, dug up in the 1960s at Herodium, King Herod's fortress-palace in the Judaean Desert, bearing the image of a vessel and the Greek letters ΠΙΛΑΤΟ. Despite suggestions that the signet might have belonged to the most famous official in history, Pontius Pilate, scholars, among them Professor of Ancient Judaism Katherine Bonesho, point out that this cannot be so, since the last letter of the inscription is an omicron, not an omega, which makes the Greek inscription erroneous; were it Latin spelling, it would be the dative case, "for Pilate". Moreover, it is hardly likely that so high-ranking a man would have worn a plain copper trinket instead of a costly gold ornament. Most probably the ring belonged to a slave or freedman employed in the administrative work of the prefect, and its seal meant "I sign for Pilate".