TEL ZAYIT (ZEITAH) INSCRIPTION SESSION REPORT (part two): KYLE MCCARTER reported that the two-line inscription is of hard limestone and is very hard to see and read. Because it is an abecedary, it is difficult to interpret the text or even to decide which language it is in. It is written by a good, talented scribe on what seems to have been a prepared surface. Later scratches and accretions give it a misleading impression of crude execution. It invites comparison to the Gezer Calendar inscription and also the tenth-century Phoenician inscriptions from Byblos. I won't go into his detailed comments on the individual letters, but the general picture is that almost all the features of the text are more archaic than or as archaic as the Gezer Calendar, which confirms a tenth-century BCE date. There are three or four variants in order compared to the traditional Hebrew alphabet: vav - he, het - zayin, lamed - kaph, and (possibly -- the readings are uncertain) pe - ayin. Only the last, if it is real, is paralleled elsewhere.

Part one is here. To be continued ...