According to Cross & Freedman, _Early Hebrew Orthography: A Study of the Epigraphic Evidence_, pp. 46-48:Thank you. I prefer to accept this scholarly evidence. I don't think we can trust Karl's proto-Sinaitic evidence as we don't know how the words were pronounced.
The Gezer Calendar (c. 925) does not use them. (The waw in YRXW is not a mater lectionis, but is to be understood phonetically as "ew" (contraction of "ehu", and the word translated "his two months".)
The Shemaiah Seal (9th century) has the word LSM(YHW "belonging to Shemaiah": "The final vowel u is represented by the vowel letter waw. If the dating of this seal is correct, this is the first instance of a mater lectionis in Hebrew orthography." They also note: "The fact that a full system of matres lectionis was employed in the Me$a` Inscription from the middle of the 9th century, suggests strongly that they were being used in Israel at the same time."
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