10th century ostracon from Jerusalem

[ignorantianescia]

Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has uncovered an inscribed jar fragment from her excavations near the Temple Mount. Dating to the tenth century B.C., the inscription is the earliest alphabetic text ever found in Jerusalem. The inscribed fragment is part of the shoulder of a pithos, a large neckless ceramic jar. Written in the proto-Canaanite script and reading from left to right, the text consists of a series of letters—m, q, p, h, n, possibly l, and n.

More: www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/news/jerusalems-earliest-alphabetic-text/

[fortigurn]

A tenth century inscription in Jerusalem is exciting, but an alphabetic text is even more so. Proto-Canaanite is to be expected, and I wonder how this will contribute to studies of Iron Age literacy in early Israel?

[ignorantianescia]

According to Mazar, the inscription is not Hebrew or in any other West-Semitic language, so the inscription supposedly indicates the presence of foreign scribes. Others however have suggested Hebrew readings.

I actually thought that Phoenician or early Paleo-Hebrew scripts would be more probable in the tenth century, but Proto-Canaanite still possible. Edit: I've forgot where I got that impression from, though.

[labarum]

Jul 14, 2013 14:51:30 GMT ignorantianescia said:

According to Mazar, the inscription is not Hebrew or in any other West-Semitic language, so the inscription supposedly indicates the presence of foreign scribes. Others however have suggested Hebrew readings.

Actually, he did not state the text was not written in a Western Semitic language but that the particular word was not known in a Western Semitic language. Proto-Canaanite is a Western Semitic script. The theory is this may have been the owner's name and he was a foreigner living in the region.