Khirbet Qeiyafa - Khirbet Qeiyafa Inscription

Khirbet Qeiyafa Inscription

A 15-by-16.5-centimetre (5.9 in × 6.5 in) ostracon, a trapezoid-shaped pottery sherd with five lines of text, was discovered during excavations at the site in 2008.

Although the writing on the ostracon is poorly preserved and difficult to read, Émile Puech of the École Biblique et Archéologique Française proposed that it be read:

1 Do not oppress, and serve God … despoiled him/her

2 The judge and the widow wept; he had the power

3 over the resident alien and the child, he eliminated them together

4 The men and the chiefs/officers have established a king

5 He marked 60 servants among the communities/habitations/generations

and understood the ostracon as a locally written copy of a message from the capital informing a local official of the ascent of Saul to the throne. Puech considered the language to be Canaanite or Hebrew without Philistine influence.

Gershon Galil of Haifa University proposed the following translation:

1 you shall not do, but worship (the god)

2 Judge the sla and the wid / Judge the orph

3 the stranger. ead for the infant / plead for the po

4 the widow. Rehabilitate at the hands of the king

5 Protect the po the slave / ort the stranger.

On January 10, 2010, the University of Haifa issued a press release stating that the text was a social statement relating to slaves, widows and orphans. According to the document: "It uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, such as `asah ("did") and `avad ("worked"), which were rarely used in other regional languages. Particular words that appear in the text, such as almanah ("widow") are specific to Hebrew and are written differently in other local languages. The content itself was also unfamiliar to all the cultures in the region besides the Hebrew society: The present inscription provides social elements similar to those found in the biblical prophecies and very different from prophecies written by other cultures postulating glorification of the gods and taking care of their physical needs." Gershon Galil claims that the language of inscription is Hebrew and that 8 out of 18 words written on inscription are exclusively biblical. He also claimed that 30 major archeological scholars do support this thesis.

Other readings are possible, and the official excavation report presented many possible reconstructions of the letters without attempting a translation. The inscription is written left to right in a script which is probably Early Alphabetic/Proto Phoenician, though Christopher Rollston and Demsky consider that it might be written vertically. Early Alphabetic differs from old Hebrew script and its immediate ancestor. Rollston also disputes the claim that the language is Hebrew, arguing that the words alleged to be indicative of Hebrew either appear in other languages or don't actually appear in the inscription.

Millard believes the language of the inscription is Hebrew, Canaanite, Phoenician or Moabite and it most likely consists of a list of names written by someone unused to writing. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said the inscription was very important, as it is the longest Proto-Canaanite text ever found.

In 2010, the ostracon was placed on display in Iron Age gallery of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.