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Thursday, January 23, 2014
The Oldest Hebrew Inscription from Jerusalem has been deciphered

Press Release
January 23, 2014
The Oldest Hebrew Inscription from Jerusalem has been deciphered
[For photo
http://bit.ly/1jGdgTi ]

Professor Gershon Galil, from the Department of Biblical Studies and Jewish
History, University of Haifa, in Israel, who has deciphered the inscription,
pointed out that it indicates writing abilities as well as the existence of
an administration which collects taxes, prepare storage places and jars, and
takes care of the workers in Jerusalem, as early as the second half of the
10th century BC, probably in the reign of King Solomon.

Professor Gershon Galil, from the Department of Biblical Studies and Jewish
History at the University of Haifa, deciphered the oldest Hebrew inscription
found in Jerusalem. The inscription was unearthed during the 2012
excavations in Jerusalem, ca. 80m south of the southern wall of the Temple
Mount, by Dr. Eilat Mazar and her team, during an archaeological excavation
on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem.

The new inscription was incised under the rim of a large pithos and reads,
from right to left, as follows: “[…]m [yy]n ḫlq m[…]”, namely: "[in
the … year], wine of inferior quality, (send) from GN" (see Figure below).
The inscription is divided into three categories: (a) a date formula; (b)
classification of the wine; and (c) provenance.

Prof. Galil said that the form yyn (“wine”) indicates that the language used
in this inscription is Hebrew, written in the southern dialect: in Ugaritic,
Old Canaanite, Phoenician, Ammonite, and even in Israelite Hebrew (attested
in the Samaria Ostraca) wine was always written with only one yod; But in
(southern) Hebrew the form is always yyn (Epigraphic Hebrew [Lachish, Arad
and more], Biblical Hebrew [without any exception], Ben Sira, Qumran, and
even in the Rabbinic sources). Prof. Galil published his findings in the
Strata Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society.

"The new inscription is written in the late Cannanite script, in (southern)
Hebrew, and should be dated to the second half of the 10th century BC. It is
therefore the oldest Hebrew inscription ever found in Jerusalem, and it is
about two hundred and fifty years older than other inscriptions known from
Jerusalem. In those days King Solomon completed his monumental building
projects in Jerusalem, including the Temple and the palace. Solomon was the
king who inhabited the Ophel and he was the one who built the wall of
Jerusalem which united its three main quarters: the Temple Mount, the Ophel
and the city of David", said Prof. Galil.

Prof. Galil also said that the new inscription indicates that large
quantities of inferior wine were used in Jerusalem: "This cheap wine was not
served on Solomon's table, nor used in the Temple. So it is reasonable to
suppose that it was served to the hard workers that were engaged in the
large scale building projects in Jerusalem, and maybe also to the soldiers
who served there. The logistics needed were probably concentrated in the
Ophel. Inferior wine was also served to the Cypriot mercenaries in Arad, and
in later periods to workers and soldiers in the Hellenistic and Roman
periods".

The inscription also teaches us that there were scribes in Jerusalem who
were able to write texts as early as the second half of the 10th century BC.
The registration of the wine and its storage indicate the existence of an
administration which collected taxes, prepared storage places and jars, and
took care of the workers in Jerusalem, fed them and served them water and
even inferior wine.

"Scribes that were able to write administrative texts are also able to
compose literary and historiographical texts (as clearly demonstrated
recently by the Qeiyafa inscription). This fact is of major importance for
reconstructing the process of the crystallization of the Bible, and even
more for the understanding of the History of Israel and Jerusalem in
Biblical times", summarized Prof. Galil.

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