The woman died more than 1,600 years ago, in what is now Jordan [...] in the ancient city of Zoar [her] tombstone, which is made of sandstone and is roughly the size of a legal pad, became their window to an ancient world centered in Zoar. Dr. Fine said that Zoar was “a major Christian city, a biblical pilgrimage city,” but that it had a sizable Jewish population. [...] Jewish tombstones from Zoar had been discovered in the early 20th century [...] 30 to 40 had been documented. [...] “ ‘Here rests the soul of Sa’adah, daughter of something.’ We don’t know the ‘something.’ ”Going by the format of other ancient tombstones, they felt certain the missing word was the name of the woman’s father and wondered if it was Phineas, but they said they could not be sure. “We have the P,” Dr. Fine said. “We thought there was an N, but we’re stuck because whatever it is, it’s been scratched away. You get to the point where ‘I can’t know’ may be the most learned answer you can give.”
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