Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Of course the reporter got some things wrong: for example, settlement at Gath 
did not cease around 1000 BCE. And the word "Greek" should be taken with a 
pinch of salt.

Yigal Levin

>From <http://www.jewishexponent.com/ViewArticle.asp?ArtID=843>:
=========================================


These Guys Were Such Philistines!
- Jared Shelly

An important archaeological discovery made in Israel could shed more light
on the ancient culture of the Philistines, a seafaring people that left
the area of Greece in about 1200 BCE and landed on Israel's shores. At a
dig in late July at Tell es-Safi, a site approximately halfway between
Jerusalem and Ashkelon, a young woman found a pottery shard inscribed with
what appear to be ancient Hebrew letters, though it also records a Greek
name.

While the initial stage and later stage of Philistine settlements are
well-represented in the field of archaeology, the middle stages - in which
the Grecian Philistines began to assimilate with the local Semitic people
and customs - remain more of a mystery. The find at Tell es-Safi may
illuminate that intermediary period.

"There are very important aspects of this dig that are helping us learn
things that we didn't previously know," said Linda Meiberg, a
Connecticut-born Ph.D. student at the University of Pennsylvania who
joined teachers and students from Tel Aviv's Bar-Ilan University working
at the site.

Beneath the hard-packed soil is believed to be the ancient city of Gath,
one of the five cities of the Philistine Pentapolis, home to such biblical
figures as Goliath and Achish. Settlement at Gath ended at about 1000 BCE;
the Philistines, likewise, disappeared from recorded history in 600 BCE.

According to Meiberg, the discovery of the inscription supports her
group's working hypothesis that after the Philistines settled in southern
Israel, they began using the local language as part of adopting some of
the area's culture.

"During the process of assimilation, they at some point, perhaps, began
speaking the native Semitic language," she explained. "We believe they
would have also adopted the writing system. They wouldn't be speaking a
Semitic language, but using Indo-European writing."

As for finding artifacts of her own, Meiberg, who did her undergraduate
and graduate work at Tel Aviv University, got off to a rough start.

"We weren't finding anything, and I was getting very discouraged because
the deeper we would go, it just seemed to be nothing coming out," said
Meiberg, who's currently writing a dissertation on the Philistines. "Then
to start finding whole vessels, it was such an uplifting feeling, like
there's really a point to what I'm doing here."

As she started finding more and more, Meiberg began to notice that she was
digging on two sides of a wall, because one side yielded loom weights -
used in ancient times to make linens - while the other side was rather
bare.

"We found a total of 110 loom weights, which is a fantastic find," said
Meiberg.

Because there were so many in one structure, she believes that it may be
have been an industrial site, or a perhaps a private residence.

This was the eighth season for the Bar-Ilan group, which works at Tell
es-Safi for about one month each summer. Meiberg said that digs such as
this one can go on for 15 years.

The latest dig was such a success that upon its completion, Israeli
President Moshe Katsav made a visit to the site to see the inscription.

Meiberg saw the visit as evidence of a renewed interest in archaeology:
"Politics and security are always at the forefront of headlines and news.
Archaeology that wasn't getting much attention now is getting national
attention."