Friday, June 05, 2015

New inscription from Khirbet Qeiyafa

THE SITE THAT KEEPS ON GIVING: New Khirbet Qeiyafa Inscription Published. What Does it Say? (Luke Chandler). Briefly, it was written on a jar in the tenth or eleventh century BCE and it includes the name Ishba‘al ("Man of Baal" or "Man of the Lord"), which was also the name of one of King Saul's sons.

The full, scholarly publication by Yosef Garfinkel, Mitka R. Golub, Haggai Misgav and Saar Ganor has appeared in BASOR and can be read at Haggai Misgav's Academia.edu page.

We have been looking forward to the full publication for over a year and it is good to have it out. That link also connects to earlier posts on the first Khirbet Qeiyafa inscription, as well as on the portable shrines also found at the site (more here). The other two finds are from around same period as the new inscription.

Other recent Canaanite (Hebrew(ish)?) epigraphic finds from roughly the tenth century BCE include the Tel es-Safi (Gath) inscription (see here, here, here; and note also here) the Tel Zayit abecedary (here and links), and the Jerusalem inscription (here and links).