A group of forty-five bullae was discovered in the remains of a house – 'the House of the Bullae'. Documents, which had been kept there, were burned, but the fire baked the clay bullae, which had sealed them. The bullae bear a variety of names, as clearly the room served as an archive for 'incoming' mail. One of the bullae bears the name of 'Gemariah son of Shaphan', a personage mentioned in the Bible as a royal scribe in the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah (late seventh century BCE), in the days of the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 36:9-12). The house was destroyed in the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE.