Announced during a press conference in March 2022, the tablet comes from the West Bank site of Mt. Ebal, which was first excavated by archaeologist Adam Zertal in the 1980s. The site consists of two large stone installations, one circular and one rectangular. Zertal interpreted the site and the earlier circular feature to be the location of Joshua’s altar (Joshua 8:30), though many dispute this identification. The tablet was only recovered in 2019, however, when archaeologists with ABR began a project to sift the soil dumps from the Mt. Ebal excavation in hopes of identifying artifacts that had been missed during the original dig.This is a reprint of a BHD essay published on 25 April 2022, which I noted originally here. It has just been posted again. I link to it not because it has new information, but to underline that it does not.[...]
The object was first announced in late January of 2022. For more PaleoJudaica posts, start here and follow the links.
We were told a year ago that the epigraphic team hoped to publish an article about it in 2022. The article has not yet appeared. I have heard nothing more about the object in the last year. I would love to be wrong, but I remain skeptical of the claims about it. The Lottery Rule still applies.
UPDATE: I have just learned that according to Prof. Galil's Facebook account, an article on the tablet has been accepted "in one of the leading [peer-review] journals in the field." Which journal is not specified. I look forward to seeing the full evidence for the remarkable claims about the tablet.
UPDATE (13 May): The article is now published. See here for link and my initial assessment.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.