Inscribed on a pottery fragment 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) in size, the writing mentions a delay in payment, the first day of the month of Av, and the title of an Assyrian officer, the “holder of the reins,” a position connected to the royal court known from Assyrian historical records. The words are written in cuneiform script in the Akkadian language. Scientific analysis of the clay confirmed that it came from the Tigris basin region, where several Assyrian centers were located.This is an exciting discovery indeed. I hope they can find the rest of the tablet.
Ruth Schuster also covers the fragment in Haaretz, with additional details and informed speculation from a phone interview with the excavation director: Assyrian Cuneiform Hinting at Tax Dodging Found in First Temple Jerusalem. Sealing fragment from Assyria found in Jerusalem for the first time. Assyriologists believe it's a complaint.
This is the only cuneiform text from the Neo-Assyrian period excavated in Jerusalem. Eliat Mazar exavated a much older cuneiform fragment (14th century BCE) in Jerusalem in 2010. See here, here, here, and here.
The Haaretz article mentions a "similar artifact" found in Samaria. I'm not certain what that is. A Persian-era cuneiform text mentioning a slave sale was found in Tel Mikhmore, which is on the coast about 50 miles from Samaria, in 2018. Cuneiform texts were also discovered by the Harvard Samaria expedition in 1908-1910, the same expedition that found the Hebrew Samaria Ostraca. A summary is here, although I can't confirm the details. An example is here.
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