Monday, August 19, 2013
One reason why Jews have only valid claim to the LAND
A link to Jerusalemites at the end of the First Temple period
August 18, 2013, 11:29 am
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Archaeologists working in
Jerusalem have discovered what they say is a 2,700 year-old pottery
fragment with an ancient Hebrew inscription possibly containing the name
of a Biblical figure.
The
fragment, discovered just outside the capital’s Old City at the City of
David site, in what is now the Arab village of Silwan, was likely part
of a large ceramic bowl dating from between the 8th and 7th centuries
BCE, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said Sunday.
The text fragment on the shard, roughly
transliterated without vowels into English characters as “ryhu bn bnh,”
is similar to the name of Zechariah son of Benaiah, the father of the
prophet Jahaziel, whose name appears in 2 Chronicles 20:14 when Jahaziel
spoke prophecy to King Jehoshaphat before the king went off to war.
“While not complete, the inscription presents
us with the name of a seventh century BCE figure, which resembles other
names known to us from both the Biblical and archaeological record… and
provides us with a connection to the people living in Jerusalem at the
end of the First Temple period,” the statement said.
The City of David, while today located outside
the southern walls of the Old City, is understood by archaeologists to
be the site of the ancient city of Jerusalem mentioned in the Bible.
The bowl fragment, along with a number of
other small artifacts dating from the same period, was discovered by
archaeologists Joe Uziel and Nahshon Zanton during an investigation of
remains associated with the destruction of the First Temple, which
occurred in 587 BCE at the hand of Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar.
Uziel and Zanton said that the letters
inscribed on the bowl shard likely date from “sometime between the reign
of Hezekiah and the destruction of Jerusalem under King Zedekiah.”
Based on their analysis, they noted, the inscription “was engraved on
the bowl prior to firing, indicating that the inscription originally
adorned the rim of the bowl in its entirety, and was not written on a
shard after the vessel was broken.”
The bowl possibly contained an offering, given by the person whose name was inscribed on the vessel, they said.
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