It is supposed that one of these documents was a duplicate of the other; and it may have been customary to carefully seal one copy and deposit it in a safe place, perhaps to bury it on a part of the land described in it, while the other was left unsealed in some public place designated for the purpose, where all persons interested might have access to it whenever they desired. Inasmuch, however, as the city was to be destroyed, the prophet was directed to have both copies put into an earthen vessel for preservation.
In Taylor’s Calmet it is suggested that the earthen vessel containing these documents was to be buried in one corner of the land purchased, as a sort of hidden landmark of the property; and as a possible illustration the following passage is cited from the Gentoo laws of boundaries and limits: “Dust, or bonds, or seboos (bran), or cinders, or scraps of earthenware, or the hairs of a cow’s tail, or the seed of the cotton-plant: all these things above-mentioned, being put into an earthen jar filled to the brim, a man must privately bury upon the confines of his own boundary; and there preserve stones also, or bricks, or sea sand: either of these three things may be buried by way of Landmark of the limits; for all these things, upon remaining a long time in the ground, are not liable to rot, or to become putrid; any other thing, also, which will remain a long time in the ground without becoming rotten or putrid, may be buried for the same purpose. Those persons who, by any of these methods, can show the line of their boundaries, shall acquaint their sons with the respective Landmarks of those boundaries; and, in the same manner, those sons shall explain the signs of the limits to their children” (Fragments, No. 80, Taylor's Calmet, vol. 3, p. 138).