Shard with Semitic Script found in Jerusalem
probably from 11th century BC, predating king DavidAndré H. Roosma
13 July 2013
Pot shard with inscription, unearthed near Jerusalem’s
Temple Mount by Hebrew University archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar and
her team.
(Photo by Noga Cohen-Aloro) |
Just today, the Biblical Archaeology Society notified me about a remarkable find by Dr
Eilat Mazar and her team of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Amidst 10th
century BC rubble in a Jerusalem dig, they found a potshard with text on it,
apparently in what I call here the old (West-)Semitic script.
Intrigued, I sought to decipher it, but the BAS picture was not clear enough,
so I looked a little further. Fortunately, the website The Key to David’s City, shows a video
where Dr Eilat Mazar tells about the find, showing the shard from
various angles. So, I got a better image of it.
The first things that drew my attention were the identification of the
characters, on which I dared to disagree partly with the discoverers, and
the direction in which the script seems to be written, which appears to be
left-to-right, rather than the later right-to-left standard, judging by
the orientation and skewing of some of the characters.
I tended to disagree with the discoverers especially on the third character
from the left, seeing it as a lam(ed), rather than the assumed
peh.
As I did a brief analysis, I came to the following conclusions: This must
be second millennium BC West-Semitic writing (the
ancestor of the Paleo-Hebrew, Phoenician, and many other scripts –
even ours!), judging from the shape of the characters, it is probably
11th (or maybe 12th) century BC. It is probably
written left-to-right; affirming this early date (alternatively, the orientation of the picture may be upside down and the
writing right-to-left, but I would deem such rather unlikely).
The reading then is in my standardized old Semitic characters:
 ...
(M- Q-L-Ch -N ...; in post-Babylonian-exile Hebrew
script: מקלחנ...).
Judging by the shape of the letters only, and having seen only the above
picture and video, I still had also some doubts over the qoph, which,
I thought, might be interpreted as a wav as well. So then I looked
at the word in total, and it became clear that the qoph is probably
the right interpretation. For then, the word depicted may very well be
related to the Biblical Hebrew word קלחת - qallachath - a cauldron or cooking pot; especially for meat. This is
mentioned in 1 Samuel 2: 14 and Michah 3:3, in a context of boiling
sacrificial meat.
In the Ancient Languages group on LinkedIn, someone appeared to have
posted news about this find already before me. One of the reactions referred
to a great blog by the well known epigrapher
Prof. Christopher Rollston about it. I was happy to see my conclusions
so far coincide very well with the findings of this expert.
We can, of course, elaborate a little. If (following
the Bible’s usage of the word) קלחת - qallachath represented a
cooking pot for sacrificial meat, the caption
(M- Q-L-Ch -N ... / מ קלח נ ...) on this pot might
very well represent that it was meant to be used for such cooked sacrificial
meat (maybe meat in broth; the prefixed
mem as well as the suffixed nun give the significance that
contained in this pot was what had come forth from the קלחת - qallachat, the
cauldron or cooking pot of the sacrificial meat, while the suffixed nun
might also signify that it contains ‘our’ - the owner’s
family’s - share of it). It might make this earthen vessel a
thing that was used by the priests in the tabernacle.
Though this is
speculative, this could well be accounting for receiving special care and,
hence, its longevity, till it finally broke and later this
significant shard of it was used as filling in the floor of a
building near the later Temple mount in the 10th century BC...
Notes
|
,
