named after Iahali.’24 Though the book of Esther belongs to Persia in the fifth century BC, and describes the use of the lot for a different purpose, nevertheless ‘the terminology and the underlying technique remain the same’.25 Thus the derivation of the word pûrîm given in the book is vindicated by the extraordinary chance of archaeology that one dice bearing the word pûru should come to light. The dice serves a wider purpose, in that it illustrates how widespread was belief in a predetermined