3200 year old Proto-Canaanite text found on Mt. Ebal

[Harel13]

Couple of updates:

First, Prof. Gershon Galil, the person who led the team who worked on interpreting the text on the amulet recently reported that another project of his, an ancient inscription from Canaanite Jerusalem, has been fully interpreted. Ironically, the text according to him is very similar to the Mt. Ebal amulet (reported in this Hebrew article):

ארור, ארור, מת תמת; ארור, ארור, מת תמת;
שר הער, מת תמת;
ארור, מת תמת; ארור, מת תמת; ארור, מת תמת​

My translation:

Cursed, cursed, you shall die; cursed, cursed you, shall die
Lord of the city, you shall die;
Cursed, cursed, you shall die; cursed, cursed you, shall die​

Here's a picture and a sketch of the text:

Unfortunately, once again, he has yet to publish an academic paper with explanations of how he figured out what was written. He told the media that it should be published in a few months. It's already been a few months since the Mt. Ebal discovery and nothing has been published yet as far as I know. I hope something will be published soon.

2. I just came across an interesting theory tying the Shapira MS with the Mt. Ebal Amulet, written in this blog post.

For those who don't know, Moses Wilhelm Shapira was a Jewish apostate who converted to Christianity in the middle of the 19th century and lived in Jerusalem, selling ancient books and antiques.

He's most famous for being involved in two alleged forgery cases - once when he teamed up with a local Christian Arab named Selim al-Qari to make and sell fake Moabite potteries, and once when he claimed he had discovered the world's most ancient Torah scroll, with multiple variants from the Masoretic Text. The former is a subject that I'm looking into these days as part of research for a paper I'm working on. The latter has been a subject of much debate since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, as the world realized that Shapira may have found 'the first DSS' (actually, not really, it is very likely that the first Karaites already had some circa the 8th-9th centuries, but never mind that). Since then, there has been harsh dispute on whether the Shapira scroll was authentic or not. 'Was' being the key term here, because the Shapira scroll disappeared many decades ago.

In any case, the author of this blog post posits that the Shapira scroll - if legit - may change the understanding of the significance of the Mt. Ebal altar and amulet.

 

[Quagmire]

ארור, ארור, מת תמת; ארור, ארור, מת תמת;
שר הער, מת תמת;
ארור, מת תמת; ארור, מת תמת; ארור, מת תמת​

My translation:

Cursed, cursed, you shall die; cursed, cursed you, shall die
Lord of the city, you shall die;
Cursed, cursed, you shall die; cursed, cursed you, shall die​

Here's a picture and a sketch of the text:

Damn ancient amulet trolls.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

On the other hand, we have the article in Bible History Daily.

To the best of my knowledge, there has yet to be a substantive peer review. At least I could not find one, and I cannot help but think back to the early enthusiasm surrounding the James Ossuary. A wait-and-see posture might be best.

 

[Harel13]

On the other hand, we have the article in Bible History Daily.

To the best of my knowledge, there has yet to be a substantive peer review. At least I could not find one, and I cannot help but think back to the early enthusiasm surrounding the James Ossuary. A wait-and-see posture might be best.

You are correct. As I've already stated a number of times on this thread that we're still waiting for a proper academic paper to be published with the imagery and exact process of interpreting the text.

I don't think it's comparable to the James Ossuary or to the Yoash Inscription (part of the same ordeal) because the amulet was found in what I would call partially in situ, given that it was found in the dirt removed during the excavation of the altar. No one knows where the ossuary or the inscription came from, which is one of the reasons people doubt their authenticity.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I don't think it's comparable to the James Ossuary or to the Yoash Inscription (part of the same ordeal) because the amulet was found in what I would call partially in situ, given that it was found in the dirt removed during the excavation of the altar. No one knows where the ossuary or the inscription came from, which is one of the reasons people doubt their authenticity.

Good point - that's an important distinction. At the same time, if the claims made are accurate (and I love that to be the case) it would drive a pretty enormous stake into the coffers of the minimalist. I guess my only point is this: the more impactful the find, the more important the peer review.

 

[Harel13]

Gershon Galil finally published an academic paper on the amulet. It's open access, so I'm linking and attaching a PDF.

 

[Heyo]

Gershon Galil finally published an academic paper on the amulet. It's open access, so I'm linking and attaching a PDF.

:informative:

 

[Harel13]

So, seven months later and another update on this subject: Roughly a week ago the archeology world was once again abuzz over this subject, as three academic papers were published in the latest issue of the IEJ (Israel Exploration Journal). Each paper argued that the Ebal object was not an amulet nor did it feature an inscription. The three were in agreement that the object was very likely a fishing-net weight, known professionally as a "sinker", but each tackled (excuse the pun) the issue from a different perspective.

A couple of articles on these claims:

'Curse tablet' with oldest Hebrew name of god is actually a fishing weight, experts argue

Researchers say they see no sign of an inscription on a tablet previously thought to contain the Hebrew name for the god Yahweh.

www.livescience.com

New studies debunk controversial biblical ‘curse tablet’ from Mt. Ebal

***

www.haaretz.com

Scott Stripling and his team have issued some responses. Right after their publication seven months ago, Peter Van Der Veen, one of the two lead epigraphists on the team, announced that he was relieved that he was no longer working with Gershon Galil. He believed the latter's interpretations to be significantly imaginary. While Van Der Veen agreed there is an inscription on the object and that even includes the Israelite God's name (Y-H-W), he believes that the inscription is much shorter than Galil's view (this was also stated in their joint publication). Van Der Veen remains committed to this view, and one of the archeologists who published a paper in the IEJ, Aren Maeir, agreed to post the latter's thoughts on his blog (link). Van Der Veen wants to publish another paper on the matter, as well as the publication of the long-awaited outer inscription (the publication only discussed the inner inscription) together with the rest of the team, bar Galil.

Stripling has also argued against the publications, but admittedly prior to reading them (they were first announced via a couple of news articles) (link).

Galil, for his part, has stated two things on the matter:
1. He is planning on publishing a book on the Ebal object (amulet?) this coming year. The book will feature high-quality images of the various letters he has identified and thorough explanations of his reading. Circa this publication we should also expect to see the publication of his and Eli Shukrun's book on the claimed new Hezekiah inscriptions.
2. In a short FB comment he noted that even if the object was originally a sinker, that in itself doesn't disprove the possibility of it being reused as an amulet.

While some researchers think that the IEJ articles are the final nail in the coffin, I think this is more wishful thinking on their part. It reminds me of some research I conducted for an essay I wrote a couple of years ago for uni, on the life of French archeologist Charles Clermont-Ganneau. One of Clermont-Ganneau's greatest claims to fame was his reconstruction of the shattered Mesha Stele and subsequent publication of the text. After its publication, some scholars raised the possibility that it was a fake, and to this day there are a few researchers who hold this view, or at least are willing to consider it. Most scholars today, however, would probably laugh at this notion. But in real-time, such dissenting voices probably held more weight. We can see from Clermont-Ganneau's multiple publications on the matter that he had to put in a lot of time and energy into arguing against such voices. So, as long as Stripling's team still has a fighting spirit in them for this matter, there probably won't be any set consensus for some time (whether there is an inscription on the Ebal object or not). Perhaps in a few years the technology to unfold the object without destroying it will be developed, which may be useful in its research.

 

[Harel13]

Small update on this matter:

Recently, Gershon Galil, formerly a member of the team that studied this mysterious object and published the first inscription, self-published a book on his interpretation of the inner (published) and outer (yet-to-be-published) inscriptions on this object. The book, "The Mount Ebal Inscription" (Megillat Sefer Publishing), available both in Hebrew and English editions (and right now can only be purchased by contacting the director of Galil's publishing company (I am not affiliated in any way)), discusses Galil's readings of the two purported inscriptions, his interpretation of the object, and three smaller studies on other inscriptions he believes are related to this object.

I purchased the Hebrew edition and had been planning to read it during our recent excavations but ended up not having any time for that. So I only started reading it last Shabbat. I'll update with more information in the future.

 

[Harel13]

So, I finished Galil's book on Shabbat. It turned out that it's a lot less shorter than it seems, because many of the pages are just for high-res photos of the x-rays/ultrasounds/else (not sure what type of mechanism they used) they did of the supposed inner and outer inscriptions of the object.

Some thoughts:

I love epigraphy (the study of inscriptions); it would be awesome if I ever found myself in a position where I get to be among the first to study a newly-discovered, unpublished inscription. But I'm no expert, far from it. So even after reading Galil's book, I still have some doubts on whether there are actually letters on the object. On the other hand, I find the anti-inscription scholars' suggestion that this is a fishing net-weight to be farfetched. There are some oddly-shaped scratches that I think it would be difficult to write-off as simple random weathering of the lead. One of the main pluses of Galil's book are the high-res photos and the individual analysis of every single letter that Galil believes he can see on the object. Thanks to these pictures, I managed to see for myself almost all of the inner markings, and a few of the outer ones, which I think makes the book worthwhile in itself, because now the average reader and/or scholar can see for themselves what Galil (and the rest of the original team) is/are talking about. I will note that there were scratches that I noticed that Galil did not identify as anything and did not see fit (apparently) to discuss. These may serve as difficulties to his proposed interpretation of the proposed text.

In my opinion, the book inexplicitly raises an important question for the field of scholarship: Do we really know what so-called "magical texts" looked like in Late Bronze-Early Iron Age Greater Canaan (this would include Transjordan and Phoenicia)? We have some magical inscriptions from other contemporaneous cultures, such as the Execration Texts from Egypt, but what of Canaan? One of the main issues raised by scholars who criticized Galil and the rest of the team was that it's difficult to believe that a curse text would be designed in such an unusual manner: Random ordering of letters within words, random ordering of words within the entire inscription, different sizes for the same letters, and words layered over other words. But the truth is, that we have absolutely no idea what was "usual" for Canaanite or Israelite curse texts or magic texts from this period. On the other hand, during later periods (Hellenistic and onwards), we find many different formats for magic texts all across the ancient world, including spiraling texts (e.g., Mesopotamian incantation bowls), Charaktêres, mystic symbols of different sorts, names of deities, names of Jewish sages, names of famous kings (e.g., Solomon, Alexander the Great), names of demons, names of angels, pagan iconography, nomina barbara, mythological bestiary iconography, and much more. Can we really say that we understand why in one place a scribe wrote X and in another, a scribe wrote Y? Do we understand the order within the chaos of all of these texts? Not at all. Sometimes we have some understanding, but certainly not always.
I think this book is important because even if there aren't any inscriptions on this curious object, there is some humility sometimes lacking in scholarship: We may be part of the rational 21st century, but we are far away from completely understanding our ancient ancestors. That the proposed format of the text is strange should not be a reason to doubt its authenticity, at least as long as we know so little about what texts from this period typically looked like.

Some more pluses about the book:

• There are three appendices. Two of them feature preliminary publications for new suggested readings by Galil for three inscriptions discovered in Israel in the last couple of decades (an ostracon (a piece of pottery with writing) from Lachish, an ostracon from Jerusalem, and a stone inscription from Jerusalem). These are relevant to the book because Galil proposes that all three feature similar curse texts (though none mention according to him the name of the Israelite God) structured in a manner similar to the Ebal object's texts, and similarly dated to the Late Bronze Age.
• Galil gave some sneak mentions of a few future publications by him and other scholars, including the final report of Zertal's excavations of the Mt. Ebal Altar site during the 80s (the publication process originally ceased when Zertal passed away nine years ago, but has apparently been picked up by colleagues).
• All pages are matte. I don't like matte (I cringe when fingernails meet matte), but it does make for quality photo paper, which is great for one of the purposes of the book, publishing those aforementioned high-res pictures of the object.

A couple of things that I didn't like:

• Galil believes in some form of the redactionist theory of the authorship of the Torah (the Pentateuch) and the rest of the Nach (Prophets and Writings), and these views factor into his discussions of the object and its inscriptions. I am not a believer in these theories, and do not like reading discussions on the matter. I think such discussions are nonsensical.
• Galil criticized the method of another epigraphist by mentioning that this scholar had once proposed a legit reading for an inscription that was later revealed to be a modern creation (it wasn't intended to be a forgery, but it was eventually found and mistakenly identified as ancient). I thought this was a below-the-belt blow that was intended to mock the person and not so much the method. I was particularly disappointed since Galil himself had been similarly criticized in the past (in character and not just method).

There are some more pros and cons, but I'll leave it at that.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I love epigraphy (the study of inscriptions); ...

Have you read "The Invention of Hebrew" by Seth L. Sanders?

Galil believes in some form of the redactionist theory of the authorship of the Torah (the Pentateuch) and the rest of the Nach (Prophets and Writings), ... I am not a believer in these theories, and do not like reading discussions on the matter. I think such discussions are nonsensical.

I find that sad.

 

[Harel13]

Have you read "The Invention of Hebrew" by Seth L. Sanders?

I don't think so.

I find that sad.

Can't say your comment is unexpected. But it would always be more helpful both to the person being criticized and to the other members if you would clarify what you find sad.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Can't say your comment is unexpected. But it would always be more helpful both to the person being criticized and to the other members if you would clarify what you find sad.

It saddens me to see someone pursuing a scientific discipline reject inconvenient scholarship out of hand.

 

[Harel13]

It saddens me to see someone pursuing a scientific discipline reject inconvenient scholarship out of hand.

First of all, I don't think the study of history and archeology can be considered a science. Both often used scientific methods, but to call these fields scientific in themselves is a stretch in my opinion.

That said, I have actually read on the topic. I've read Wellhausen's Prolegomena, I've read summaries of newer developments in the field in various places, I've read Cassuto's Hebrew book on the topic, I've read some of MD Segal's writings, and I've read many an article that references and/or discusses different aspects of the theory. I've also read arguments from the other side of the aisle, such as Yoel Elitzur's papers on the linguistic development, some of RDZ Hoffman's writings on the topic, and more. You can always criticize me for not approaching the topic with an open mind and a willingness to have my mind changed; that is an aspect of my religiousity and faith that I don't intend to give up (similarly, I've never read up on other religions intending to have my mind changed, and so forth). However, don't assume that I know nothing about a topic you like simply because I state that I dislike it without further discussing it.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

First of all, I don't think the study of history and archeology can be considered a science. Both often used scientific methods, but to call these fields scientific in themselves is a stretch in my opinion.

That is an interesting position that I need to think about.

You can always criticize me for not approaching the topic with an open mind and a willingness to have my mind changed; that is an aspect of my religiousity and faith that I don't intend to give up (similarly, I've never read up on other religions intending to have my mind changed, and so forth). However, don't assume that I know nothing about a topic you like simply because I state that I dislike it without further discussing it.

I do not believe that I have ever done so,

 

[River Sea]

@Harel13

What would that mean if Epigraphy isn't in a row?

"You are Cursed by the God YHW:" an early Hebrew inscription from Mt. Ebal

PS Please note that during the publication process (post-proofreading) the orientation of the Hebrew letters – integrated in English sentences – on p. 17, shifted to L > R. We shall try to get this solved asap. Thank you for your kind

www.academia.edu

Fig. 5 Object structure. Drawings by Gershon Galil
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[Harel13]

I do not believe that I have ever done so

Then I don't know what you mean by "reject inconvenient scholarship out of hand".

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Then I don't know what you mean by "reject inconvenient scholarship out of hand".

I do. It means, for example:

... not approaching the topic with an open mind and a willingness to have my mind changed; that is an aspect of my religiousity and faith that I don't intend to give up ...