| Zayit Stone | |
|---|---|
 Drawing of inscription on the Zayit Stone | |
| Material | Limestone boulder |
| Size | 38 pounds (17 kg) |
| Writing | Phoenician/Paleo-Hebrew |
| Created | 10th c. BCE |
| Discovered | 2005 |
TheZayit Stone is a 38-pound (17 kg) limestone boulder dating to the 10th century BCE, discovered on 15 July 2005 atTel Zayit (Zeitah) in the Guvrin Valley, about 50 kilometres (31 mi) southwest ofJerusalem.[1] The boulder measures 37.5 by 27 by 15.7 centimetres (14.8 in × 10.6 in × 6.2 in) and was embedded in the stone wall of a building. It is the earliest known example of the completePhoenician orPaleo-Hebrew alphabet[2] as it had developed after theBronze Age collapse out of theProto-Canaanite alphabet.
The flat side of the boulder is inscribed with a completeabecedary, although in a different order to the traditional version.[3] The first line contains eighteen letters (aleph throughtsadi), while the second contains the remaining four letters (qoph throughtav) followed by two enigmatic zigzag symbols.
One side of the stone carries theNorthwest Semitic (Phoenician) abecedary[4] extending over two lines:
Rendered in the modernHebrew alphabet, this corresponds to the sequence:
In other words, the Zayit abecedary has the order ו ה ח ז ט י ל כ compared to the standardSemitic abjad order ofה ו ז ח ט י כ ל, switching the positions of he and waw, of zayin and heth, and of kaph and lamedh.
The very top line of the inscription contain the letters:
In the modernHebrew alphabet this translates toעזר, transliteratedʿzr. This is the given nameEzer (Hebrew:עֵזֶר,romanized: ‘ēzer,lit. 'help, helper').[5]
The side opposite this inscription has a bowl-shaped depression measuring 18.5 by 14.5 by 6.7 centimetres (7.3 in × 5.7 in × 2.6 in), a volume of approximately 1.8 litres (110 cu in).[6] Other similar ground stone objects have been recovered at Tel Zayit. Their function is uncertain, but "they may have served as mortars, door sockets, or basins of some kind."[7]
The stone was discovered on July 15, 2005, by volunteer excavator, Dan Rypma,[8] during excavations under the direction of Ron E. Tappy ofPittsburgh Theological Seminary atTel Zayit as part of the archeological excavations which took place during the 1999–2001, 2005, 2007, and 2009–2011 seasons.[9][10]
The inscription was discoveredin situ in what appears to be a tertiary usage as part of wall 2307/2389 in square O19.[11] Like theGezer calendar, the abecedary is an important witness to the letter forms in use in the Levant in the early Iron Age.
The Tel Zayit abecedary adds to the corpus of inland Canaanite alphabetic inscriptions from the early Iron Age and thus provides additional evidence for literacy in the region during this period. While claiming a certain "level" of literacy on the basis of this and similar inscriptions is notoriously difficult, Carr (2008) argued that because "Tel Zayit is... small enough and distant enough from Jerusalem... the presence of this inscription there might be taken as testimony of more widespread writing across more far-flung and minor administrative centers of Judah."[12]
In addition to preserving writing as such, the inscription preserves an ordered sequence of letters, though this differs at points from those of other abecedaries from the Late Bronze and Iron Age Levant.[13] Particularly,waw is placed beforehe,het is placed beforezayin, andlamed is placed beforekaph. In this last instance, a large X appears to mark a mistake realized by the scribe himself.
There has been some disagreement as to whether the inscription should be associated with the coastal (Phoenician) or highland (Hebrew) cultural sphere.[14] Consequently, there has been debate on whether the letters should be described as "Phoenician", "Hebrew", or more broadly as "South Canaanite."[15] Tappy et al. (2006) associated the inscription with the earlyKingdom of Judah.[16] This interpretation has been challenged on both palaeographic[17] and archaeological[18] grounds.
In addition to the above broad historical concerns, the inscription is significant primarily due to the light it sheds on the development of letter forms in the southern Canaanite interior of the early Iron Age. Because the stratigraphy of the site and the date of the inscription itself are still debated, it is difficult to come to any definite historical or chronologically absolute conclusions.[19]
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