Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon

The Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon is an ostracon discovered during the excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa in 2008 and dates to the Iron Age IIa (early 10th century BC). The text was written on the inside of a pottery shard and contains five lines of text, some of which are broken and some of which are part of the letters. The ostracon is of great importance in understanding the development of the Hebrew script: the text was written in letters from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, which until the discovery of this ostracon, was accepted to say that this script disappeared even before the 10th century BC. The ostracon shows that the Proto-Canaanite script continued to exist longer than researchers thought before, and probably even concurrently with the use of the Phoenician script which was more prevalent from the end of the 11th century BC onwards.

Among the scholars there is an agreement that the words ‘and slave’, ‘sheft’ and ‘king’ can be identified in the text. Scholars differ both in reading the rest of the text and in understanding its meaning: some scholars have suggested that it is a writing exercise, some scholars have suggested that it is a legal text, some scholars have suggested linking the ‘king’ to the United Monarchy, and more. An important part of understanding the background and meaning of the text depends on the ethnic identification of the people who lived in Khirbet Qeiyafa, a topic on which scholars are divided. Sources: Mashgav H. and others, ‘The Ostracon from the Caiaphas Ruins’, in: Amit D. and others (editors), Innovations in the Archeology of Jerusalem and its Environs 3 (579), pp. 111-132.

Donnelly-Lewis B., ‘The Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon: A New Collation Based on the Multispectral Images, with Translation and Commentary’, BASOR 388 (2022), pp. 181-210.

Millard A., ‘The Ostracon from the Days of David Found at Khirbet Qeiyafa’, Tyndale Bulletin 62 (2011), pp. 1-13.