Is the Mount Ebal "curse tablet" actually a lead fishing weight?

NORTHWEST SEMITIC EPIGRAPHY? Experts question claim of 'earliest Hebrew inscription' on Mt. Ebal. “These claims are quite dramatic and require close inspection,” wrote the doubters, covering some 21 pages in the Israel Exploration Journal. (Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, Jerusalem Post).

But now, Prof. Aren Maeir – head of the Institute of Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University (BIU) in Ramat Gan, and Christopher Rollston (George Washington University), are critically considering the context and dating of the object, along with questions on the character of the site. Most importantly, the very reading that Stripling et al. suggest for the inner inscription (the outer one was not published) is seriously questioned, and it is shown to be problematic at best, and perhaps even non-existent.

The article reports that a new issue of IEJ contains three articles on the object, but I can't find the issue online yet.

For lots of PaleoJudaica posts on the Mount Ebal "curse tablet" (or whatever it is), start here and here (posts in which I give my own provisional assessment) and follow the links. I share the skepticism reported of the writers of the IEJ articles.

UPDATE: At his blog, Aren Maier explains why I can't find the IEJ issue. (HT Joseph Lauer.)

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