KYLE MCCARTER is interviewed by the John's Hopkins Gazette about the Tel Zayit inscription. Excerpt:

But the discovery is also important for the general history of the region, he says. The traditional view is that the 10th century was the Solomonic period, the time when the kingdom of Judah flourished and its capital, Jerusalem, was a rich and powerful city. Recently, though, some archaeologists have challenged this view, arguing that Jerusalem was little more than a rural village until the eighth century or even later. The archaeology of Tel Zayit shows that in the 10th century the site was linked culturally with the highlands to the east, not the coastal plain to the west, so that it was probably controlled by Jerusalem. Seen in this light, the discovery of the Tel Zayit inscription is strong evidence for the traditional view. "An abecedary is proof of literacy, probably even of formal scribal training," McCarter says, "and in this period that implies a fairly sophisticated level of culture and hints at a developed political bureaucracy."