Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Matthew Dent <dentm42 AT yahoo.com>]

Here's a summary of some of the info I've gathered on the inscription.  It's 
an exciting find, and there are certainly other interesting and significant 
finds at the site.

I happen to be the student of a member of the core group digging at the site. 
 He was the 3rd or 4th person to handle the item after it was discovered to 
contain writing.  He is also the photographer as well as the record keeper 
for the dig.

After news of the inscription broke, he presented some info regarding it to 
our graduate class along with a number of pictures - including some pictures 
by the museum handling the piece.  Even in the best of those images, done 
under very controlled circumstances with every effort to bring out detail, 
seeing the basic shapes of most of the letters was nearly impossible.

No doubt there are other enhanced photographs that have been made that I 
haven't seen, but from what I have pieced together through that presentation, 
there is currently no single photograph available that provides the necessary 
detail to read the inscription easily.  It will likely require various 
manipulations and composites of several photos to make it readable.

Reuters and the Jerusalem Post report that they have been able to read 3 
words - "judge," "slave," and "king" on the piece, so they must be fairly 
certain of the language used.  It's certainly an interesting trio of words to 
be found in the 50-100 characters on the piece.

Dr. Garfinkel is presenting at ASOR.  His original presentation is listed 
under Individual Submissions II (11/20/2008): Yosef Garfinkel (Hebrew 
University of Jerusalem) and Saar Ganor (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), “Is 
Khirbet Qeiyafa Biblical Azeka?” (15 min.)  - although now that news has 
broken about the inscription, there's no telling if that will be the 
presentation or not.

I was told he will be presenting elsewhere, but my notes don't have the 
information and I wasn't able to find it online.


LINKS: 
Reuters Article:
   http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKTRE49T52A20081030
ASOR Program Link:
   http://www.asor.org/AM/academic08PG.html
Finds from the Site:
   http://www.elahfortress.com/page18/page13/page13.html
Jerusalem Post Article: (you may need to cut & paste this link)
   
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225199605535&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

--
Matthew Dent