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Archeologists Find Hebrew Text in Ancient Town

[AP/International Herald Tribune] An Israeli archeologist digging at Hirbet Qeiyafa near Beit Shemesh, southwest of Jerusalem, believes a ceramic shard found in the ruins of an ancient town bears the oldest Hebrew inscription ever discovered. The five lines of faded characters written 3,000 years ago, and the ruins of the fortified settlement where they were found, are indications that a powerful Israelite kingdom existed at the time of the Old Testament's King David, says Yossi Garfinkel, the Hebrew University archeologist in charge of the dig. A teenage volunteer found the pottery shard in July containing written characters in a precursor of Hebrew. Carbon-14 analysis dated the layer in which it was found to be between 1,000 and 975 BCE.
2008-10-30 01:00:00
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