Israelite Arad is generally identified with Tel ʽArad, one of the most imposing mounds in the Negeb region. It lies on a somewhat rolling plain about 28 km (17 mi) E of Beer-sheba. Excavations at Tel ʽArad uncovered some 200 ostraca, about half of them in Hebrew and the rest in Aramaic. One such Hebrew potsherd, said to be from the second half of the seventh century B.C.E., reads: “To my lord Eliashib: May Jehovah ask for your peace. . . . He dwells in the house of Jehovah.”​—PICTURE, Vol. 1, p. 325.