Washington, Jan 8 (IANS) A breakthrough in decoding an ancient inscription has established that the text is in Hebrew and the earliest to be found.
Gershon Galil, professor in Biblical Studies, University of Haifa, has shown that the text is in Hebrew, dating from the 10th century BC, during King David’s reign.

“It indicates that the kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century BC, and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research,” says Galil.

The inscription, written in ink on a 15 cm by 16.5 cm trapezoid pottery shard, was discovered a year-and-a-half ago at excavations that were carried out by Yosef Garfinkel at Khirbet Qeiyafa near the Elah valley.

Although the inscription is the earliest to be found, the question of language remained unanswered. However, Galil’s decoding the ancient writing testifies to its being Hebrew, based on the use of verbs peculiar to it and content specific to Hebrew culture.

“This text is a social statement, relating to slaves, widows and orphans. It uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, such as asah (”did”) and avad (”worked”), which were rarely used in other regional languages.

Particular words that appear in the text, such as almanah (”widow”) are specific to Hebrew and are written differently in other local languages, says a Haifa university release.

The present inscription provides social elements similar to those found in the biblical prophecies and very different from those written by other cultures postulating glorification of the gods and taking care of their physical needs,” Galil explains.