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39-439: The Yavne-Yam ostracon was found in the excavations. The fortress dates from approximately 630 BCE to 609 BCE, within the reigning years of Josiah , king of Judah . William F. Albright wrote, "The life of the fortress could be dated within narrow limits by the typical late pre-exilic and early Ionian pottery found on the site, as well as by historical considerations, which suggest a date about 630 BCE. This would be just after

78-427: A field worker to the fortress's governor regarding the confiscation of his cloak, which the writer considers to have been unjust. The artefact was found in 1960 by Joseph Naveh at Mesad Hashavyahu , near Yavne-Yam . The inscription is known as KAI 200. The genre of the inscription is the subject of debate, and it was identified by different scholars as a letter, legal document, extrajudicial petition addressed to

117-457: A king or his subordinate or even as a poem. In the inscription, the worker makes his appeal to the governor on the basis of both the garment's undeserved confiscation and by implication, the biblical law regarding holding past sundown a person's cloak as collateral for a debt ( Exodus 22 ; cf. Deut 24 ). Although the petition does not specifically cite the law, it would have been commonly known by rulers and peasants alike. Some scholars argue that

156-402: A time of Judaean control over the area." Naveh agrees, "The four Hebrew inscriptions together testify to this fortress having been under Judaean control at the time. ... It seems likely that Josiah placed a military governor in charge of the fortress, and that the force garrisoned there was supplied with provisions by the peasants living in the unwalled settlements in the vicinity." The ostracon

195-602: Is an abjad of 22 consonantal letters, exactly as the other Canaanite scripts from the period. By the 5th century BCE, among Judeans the alphabet had been mostly replaced by the Aramaic alphabet as used officially by the Achaemenid Empire . The "Square" variant now known simply as the Hebrew alphabet evolved directly out of this by about the 3rd century BCE, although some letter shapes did not become standard until

234-517: Is an edited translation of the ostracon, which is composed of fourteen lines in Hebrew : Due to breaks in the ostracon and a missing lower right section, Naveh states that there are too few letters available in line 13 to make an educated guess what it said. The same might likely be said of lines 11 through 14, which have been reconstructed, and a line 15 which is missing. Paleo-Hebrew The Paleo-Hebrew script ( Hebrew : הכתב העברי הקדום ), also Palaeo-Hebrew , Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew ,

273-784: Is found in certain texts of the Torah among the Dead Sea Scrolls , dated to the 2nd to 1st centuries BCE: manuscripts 4Q12, 6Q1: Genesis. 4Q22: Exodus. 1Q3, 2Q5, 4Q11, 4Q45, 4Q46, 6Q2, and the Leviticus scroll ( 11QpaleoLev ). In some Qumran documents, the tetragrammaton name of the Israelite deity, YHWH , is written in Paleo-Hebrew while the rest of the text is rendered in the adopted Aramaic square script that became today's normative Jewish Hebrew script. The vast majority of

312-706: Is the writing system found in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions , including pre-Biblical and Biblical Hebrew , from southern Canaan , also known as the biblical kingdoms of Israel (Samaria) and Judah . It is considered to be the script used to record the original texts of the Bible due to its similarity to the Samaritan script ; the Talmud states that the Samaritans still used this script. The Talmud described it as

351-616: The 1st century . By contrast, the Samaritan script is an immediate continuation of the Proto-Hebrew script without intermediate non-Israelite evolutionary stages. There is also some continued use of the old Hebrew script in Jewish religious contexts down to the 1st century BCE, notably in the Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll found in the Dead Sea Scrolls . The Paleo-Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets developed in

390-548: The First Temple in 586 BCE. A slightly earlier ( circa 620 BCE) but similar script is found on an ostracon excavated at Mesad Hashavyahu , containing a petition for redress of grievances (an appeal by a field worker to the fortress's governor regarding the confiscation of his cloak, which the writer considers to have been unjust). After the Babylonian capture of Judea, when most of the nobles were taken into exile,

429-613: The Hasmonean coinage , as well as the coins of the First Jewish–Roman War and Bar Kokhba's revolt , bears Paleo-Hebrew legends. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet fell completely out of use among Jews only after 135 CE. The paleo-Hebrew alphabet continued to be used by the Samaritans and over time developed into the Samaritan alphabet . The Samaritans have continued to use the script for writing both Hebrew and Aramaic texts until

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468-636: The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) unearthed a 2,600-year-old seal impression, while conducting excavations at the City of David, containing Paleo-Hebrew script, and which is thought to have belonged to a certain "Nathan-Melech," an official in King Josiah 's court. Phoenician or Paleo-Hebrew characters were never standardised and are found in numerous variant shapes. A general tendency of more cursive writing can be observed over

507-648: The Moabite language (rather than generic Northwest Semitic ) are visible in the Mesha Stele inscription, commissioned around 840 BCE by King Mesha of Moab. Similarly, the Tel Dan Stele , dated approximately 810 BCE, is written in Old Aramaic , dating from a period when Dan had already fallen into the orbit of Damascus. The oldest inscriptions identifiable as Biblical Hebrew have long been limited to

546-436: The "Livonaʾa script" ( Jewish Babylonian Aramaic : לִיבּוֹנָאָה , romanized:  Lībōnāʾā ), translated by some as " Lebanon script". However, it has also been suggested that the name is a corrupted form of "Neapolitan", i.e. of Nablus . Use of the term "Paleo-Hebrew alphabet" is due to a 1954 suggestion by Solomon Birnbaum , who argued that "[t]o apply the term Phoenician [from Northern Canaan, today's Lebanon] to

585-502: The 38 lb (17 kg) stone, which resembles a bowl on the other. The find is attributed to the mid-10th century BCE. The so-called Ophel inscription is of a similar age, but difficult to interpret, and may be classified as either Proto-Canaanite or as Paleo-Hebrew. The Gezer calendar is of uncertain date, but may also still date to the 10th century BCE. The script on the Zayit Stone and Gezer Calendar are an earlier form than

624-399: The 8th century BCE. In 2008, however, a potsherd (ostracon) bearing an inscription was excavated at Khirbet Qeiyafa which has since been interpreted as representing a recognizably Hebrew inscription dated to as early as the 10th century BCE. The argument identifying the text as Hebrew relies on the use of vocabulary. From the 8th century onward, Hebrew epigraphy becomes more common, showing

663-570: The Egyptian army at the time of the late monarchic period. According to Israel Finkelstein , "it is therefore quite reasonable that the unit stationed in the Egyptian fort of Messad Hashavyahu included Judahite mercenaries", and Egyptian control was more likely than Judean: "there can be little doubt that Egypt, which expanded in the late 7th century [BCE] along the coast of the Levant, was strong enough to prevent Josiah from building an isolated fort in

702-696: The Exodus, whereas the Aramaic square script was brought from Assyria and introduced for writing Torah scrolls in the post-exilic period, while others believed that Paleo-Hebrew merely served as a stopgap in a time when the ostensibly original script (the Assyrian Script ) was lost. According to both opinions, Ezra the Scribe (c. 500 BCE) introduced, or reintroduced the Assyrian script to be used as

741-825: The Israel Museum at Jerusalem. את דבר עבדה. עבדך קצר. היה. עבדך. בח צר אסם. ויקצר עבדך ויכל ואסם כימם. לפני שב ת כאשר כל {ע}בדך את קצר וא סם כימם ויבא הושעיהו בן שב י. ויקח. את בגד עבדך כאשר כלת את קצרי זה ימם לקח את בגד עבדך וכל אחי. יענו. לי. הקצרם אתי בחם. {ה}ש {מש} אחי. יענו. לי אמן נקתי מא {שם}.........בגדי ואמלא. לשר להש {יב} ..........עב{דך}.....אלו. רח ’t dbr ‘bdh. ‘bdk qṣr. hyh. ‘bdk. bḥ ṣr ’sm. wyqṣr ‘bdk wykl w’sm kymm. lpny šb t k’šr kl {‘}bdk ’t qṣr w’ sm kymm wyb’ hwš‘yhw bn šb y. wyqḥ. ’t bgd ‘bdk k’šr klt ’t qṣry zh ymm lqḥ ’t bgd ‘bdk wkl ’ḥy. y‘nw. ly. hqṣrm ’ty bḥm. {h}š {mš} ’ḥy. y‘nw. ly ’mn nqty m’ {šm}.........bgdy w’ml’. lsr lhš {yb} ..........‘b{dk}.....’lw. rḥ — Paleo-Hebrew and romanized text The following

780-478: The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet continued to be used by the people who remained. One example of such writings are the 6th-century BCE jar handles from Gibeon , on which the names of winegrowers are inscribed. Beginning from the 5th century BCE onward, the Aramaic language and script became an official means of communication. Paleo-Hebrew was still used by scribes and others. The Paleo-Hebrew script was retained for some time as an archaizing or conservative mode of writing. It

819-546: The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, called the Samaritan script . After the fall of the Persian Empire, Jews used both scripts before settling on the Assyrian form. The Paleo-Hebrew script evolved by developing numerous cursive features, the lapidary features of the Phoenician alphabet being ever less pronounced with the passage of time. The aversion of the lapidary script may indicate that the custom of erecting stelae by

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858-441: The classical Paleo-Hebrew of the 8th century and later; this early script is almost identical to the early Phoenician script on the 9th-century Ahiram sarcophagus inscription. By the 8th century, a number of regional characteristics begin to separate the script into a number of national alphabets, including the Israelite (Israel and Judah), Moabite (Moab and Ammon), Edomite, Phoenician and Old Aramaic scripts. Linguistic features of

897-476: The commandment to copy a Torah scroll directly from another, the script could not conceivably have been modified at any point. A different version of the debate in the Jerusalem Talmud refers to the circular shapes of the letters Ayin in Paleo-Hebrew and Samekh in square script on the stone tablets as miracles according to the respective sages arguing for one script or the other. This third opinion

936-668: The death of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal and before the occupation of the Philistine Plain by Psammetichus of Egypt ." Both Greek pottery and Judahite ostraca were found (see below). Some scholars believe the site had been used by Greek mercenaries. They might have been serving under Judean command in Josiah's battles against the military of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt , as Yohanan Aharoni supposed. However, both Greek and Judahite mercenaries served in

975-585: The gradual spread of literacy among the people of the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah ; the oldest portions of the Hebrew Bible , although transmitted via the recension of the Second Temple period, are also dated to the 8th century BCE. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was in common use in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah throughout the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. During the 6th century BCE,

1014-604: The kings and offering votive inscriptions to the deity was not widespread in Israel. Even the engraved inscriptions from the 8th century exhibit elements of the cursive style, such as the shading, which is a natural feature of pen-and-ink writing. Examples of such inscriptions include the Siloam inscription , numerous tomb inscriptions from Jerusalem , the Ketef Hinnom scrolls , a fragmentary Hebrew inscription on an ivory which

1053-459: The middle of an area in which Egypt had strong strategic interests". One of the significant issues dependent on this debate is whether or not the Kingdom of Judah under King Josiah had access to a seaport. The fact that the fort was south-facing may imply that it was built for the protection of Yavne and the surrounding agricultural lands, including the seaport of Yavne-Yam, against aggressors from

1092-569: The ostracon bears the first known extra-Biblical reference to the Sabbath, but the issue is debated. Concerning who was in control of this area of the Philistine Plain, Shmuel Ahituv stated, "The letter is written in good biblical Hebrew, plus a possible scribal omission here or there, and the script is that of a trained scribe. The work supervisor mentioned in the text bears a clearly Judaean name, Hoshavyahu. All these factors point to

1131-533: The period of c. 800 BCE to 600 BCE. After 500 BCE, it is common to distinguish the script variants by names such as "Samaritan", "Aramaic", etc. There is no difference in "Paleo-Hebrew" vs. "Phoenician" letter shapes. The names are applied depending on the language of the inscription, or if that cannot be determined, of the coastal (Phoenician) vs. highland (Hebrew) association (c.f. the Zayit Stone abecedary). The Unicode block Phoenician (U+10900–U+1091F)

1170-515: The present day. A comparison of the earliest Samaritan inscriptions and the medieval and modern Samaritan manuscripts clearly indicates that the Samaritan script is a static script which was used mainly as a book hand . The Talmudic sages did not share a uniform stance on the subject of Paleo-Hebrew. Some stated that Paleo-Hebrew was the original script used by the Israelites at the time of

1209-411: The primary alphabet for the Hebrew language . The arguments given for both opinions are rooted in Jewish scripture and/or tradition. A third opinion in the Talmud states that the script never changed altogether. Rabbi Eleazar from Modiin, the sage who expressed this opinion, based his opinion on a scriptural verse, which makes reference to the shape of the letter vav . He argues further that, given

Mesad Hashavyahu - Misplaced Pages Continue

1248-583: The script of the Hebrews [from Southern Canaan, today's Israel-Palestine] is hardly suitable". The Paleo-Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets are two slight regional variants of the same script. The first Paleo-Hebrew inscription identified in modern times was the Royal Steward inscription ( KAI 191), found in 1870, and then referred to as "two large ancient Hebrew inscriptions in Phoenician letters". Fewer than 2,000 inscriptions are known today, of which

1287-476: The south, either Philistine or Egyptian. The fortress was abandoned in 609 BCE or shortly thereafter, likely associated with the loss of territory due to occupation by the Egyptian army following Josiah's death. It was excavated by Joseph Naveh in 1960. Yavne-Yam ostracon The Yavne-Yam ostracon , also known as the Mesad Hashavyahu ostracon , is an ostracon containing a written appeal by

1326-648: The time of the Babylonian exile , the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was gradually replaced by the use of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet . The letters of Imperial Aramaic were again given shapes characteristic for writing Hebrew during the Second Temple period , developing into the "square shape" of the Hebrew alphabet . The Samaritans , who remained in the Land of Israel, continued to use their variant of

1365-674: The vast majority comprise just a single letter or word. The earliest known examples of Paleo-Hebrew writing date to the 10th century BCE . Like the Phoenician alphabet , it is a slight regional variant and an immediate continuation of the Proto-Canaanite script , which was used throughout Canaan in the Late Bronze Age . Phoenician , Hebrew , and all of their sister Canaanite languages were largely indistinguishable dialects before that time. The Paleo-Hebrew script

1404-608: The wake of the Bronze Age collapse , out of their immediate predecessor script Proto-Canaanite (Late Proto-Sinaitic ) during the 13th to 12th centuries BCE, and earlier Proto-Sinaitic scripts. The earliest known inscription in the Paleo-Hebrew script is the Zayit Stone discovered on a wall at Tel Zayit , in the Beth Guvrin Valley in the lowlands of ancient Judea in 2005, about 50 km (31 mi) southwest of Jerusalem. The 22 letters were carved on one side of

1443-626: Was accepted by some early Jewish scholars, and rejected by others, partially because it was permitted to write the Torah in Greek. Use of Proto-Hebrew in modern Israel is negligible, but it is found occasionally in nostalgic or pseudo-archaic examples, e.g. on the ₪1 coin ( 𐤉𐤄𐤃 ‎ "Judea") and in the logo of the Israeli town Nahariyah ( Deuteronomy 33 :24 𐤁𐤓𐤅𐤊 𐤌𐤁𐤍𐤉𐤌 𐤀𐤔𐤓 ‎ "Let Asher be blessed with children"). In 2019,

1482-487: Was found under the floor of a room adjacent to the guardhouse/gate complex, is approximately 20 cm high by 16.5 cm wide, and contains 14 visible lines of text. In all, seven key artifacts were recovered, six of them inscribed ostraca in the Hebrew language. Pottery shards in the layer above represented Greek (early Ionian/Southwest Anatolian) or Persian-period pottery. The ostraca from this site are currently located in

1521-534: Was taken as war spoils (probably from Samaria ) to Nimrud , the Arad ostraca dating to the 6th-century BCE, the hundreds of 8th to 6th-century Hebrew seals from various sites, and the Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus scroll discovered near Tel Qumran . The most developed cursive script is found on the 18 Lachish ostraca , letters sent by an officer to the governor of Lachish just before the destruction of

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