Summary: An ancient inscription recently found at the city of Lachish supports an early exodus date and the view that the alphabet was invented by the Israelites.
Then Joshua and all Israel with him passed on from Libnah to Lachish and laid siege to it and fought against it. And the Lord gave Lachish into the hand of Israel. – Joshua 10:31-32 (ESV).
Potsherd Inscription from Tel Lachish
Debate has long ensued over the timing of the Israelite exodus from Egypt and the conquest of Canaan, notably whether it happened in the 15th or the 13th century BC. A recently-discovered/published Hebrew inscription on a potsherd from the site of Lachish in Israel’s Shephelah region offers strong support for the early exodus view, with a conquest at the end of the 15th century BC. This inscription supports the view that the Israelites invented the alphabet in Egypt during the 19th century BC, taking it with them from Egypt after the exodus, and it affirms the account of the conquest of Canaan under Joshua that is recorded in Joshua 10.
Tel Lachish, strategically positioned to defend the central mountain spine’s southwestern flank, was occupied for over 2,000 years, from the Pottery Neolithic Age until the Hellenistic Age. Lachish was the second largest Canaanite city after Hazor during the middle of the second millennium BC. The city played a significant role in Israel’s history until the Babylonian conquest of 587 BC ended Judahite occupation at the conclusion of the Iron Age.
During excavations of 2018 at Tel Lachish, excavators from the Austrian Archaeological Institute found an alphabetic inscription that was painted onto a potsherd, a process that creates an ostracon. This ostracon is a rim-sherd that broke off from a Cypriote White Slip II milk bowl that dates to late in the Late Bronze Age (LBA) IB, near the end of the 15th century BC.
Since the LBA IB dates from ca. 1484–1400 BC, the earliest possible date for the milk bowl’s manufacturing is ca. 1484 BC. Although the excavators made no attempt to connect the Lachish Milk Bowl Ostracon (LMBO, subsequently) to biblical history, its significance cannot be understated, because the inscription certainly is Hebrew.
Previous scholarship has demonstrated that Hebrew is the language behind the world’s oldest alphabet (see Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy), which is attested on proto-consonantal Hebrew (PCH) inscriptions from Egypt and Sinai dating from 1840 to 1446 BC.
The letters on the LMBO are direct descendants of this alphabet. The presence of the LMBO in Canaan at the end of the 15th century BC is one more problematic find for the late exodus view (ca. 1260 BC) and one more feather in the cap for the early exodus view (1446 BC).
Location of the Ostracon
The LMBO was discovered in Area S within Locus L1114 at the top of Stratum S-3b, the second occupational level of the LBA I at Lachish. Stratum S-3 was dominated by a fortification system that included Building 100, a city wall (L1220), and a tower (L1127/L1163/L1227). The ostracon’s findspot is just south of Wall L1027, close to its corner with the city wall, at a level near L1220’s uppermost preserved stones. The ostracon was sealed 1.64 ft. below two walls (L1162 and L1043) and the fragmentary surface of Stratum S-3a, the final occupational level at Lachish that was occupied during the LBA I (ca. 1560–1400 BC).
The LMBO was located at the convergence of three individual loci (i.e., distinct archaeological contexts): L1150 (a burnt layer, which was sampled for radiocarbon dating), L1117, and L1114 (a fill that overlaid the other two loci). Although it remains unclear whether the ostracon was deposited together with the organic material in the burnt layer, it definitely was resting in direct contact with the charred remains, and thus they were buried at the same time. Consequently, the LMBO was dateable by radiocarbon analysis.
Dating the Milk Bowl Discovery
The archaeologists dated the original depositing of the ostracon onto the ground by taking 14C (radiocarbon) measurements of two separate barley grains from L1150 that were part of the burnt layer, both of which date to within the 15th century BC, which matches similar readings for Stratum S-3a during excavations in Area S over the previous three years.
The radiocarbon range, which must be adjusted due to the pre-1400-BC offset, is 1435–1405 or 1425–1395 BC (1σ) and 1460–1400 or 1450–1390 BC (2σ). Therefore, the burnt layer of Stratum S-3b, and thus the earliest possible moment for the writing of the LMBO’s inscription along with it, realistically date to within the final quarter of the 15th century BC.
The inscription on the LMBO was composed sometime after the milk bowl served its purpose, broke and became useless. Its text reads right to left, which direction is more common among horizontal PCH inscriptions of the LBA than left to right.
Translation of the Inscription
The first word (H1–H3) reads as follows: (H1) ‘ayin + (H2) beṯ + (H3) daleṯ, meaning “servant.” The second word (H4–H5) on the inscription, in need of partial reconstruction, is (H4) ‘ayin, + H5 lámeḏ, which letters form the maqqef-preposition ‘l, meaning, “on, upon, over.” Given that the author positioned this word lower than the first word and higher than the last word, it should be recognized as the second word on the LMBO.
The third and last word on the LMBO reads (H6) nun + (H7) peh + (H8) taw, meaning “honey.” The inscription thus indicates that the ostracon’s titleholder is the servant over the keeping of honey, or the “servant in charge of honey.”
Ostracon Tied to Israelite Conquest
The burnt layer in contact with the ostracon was positioned near the uppermost preserved stones of City Wall L1220 and below the walls and floor of Stratum S-3a. Since Cypriote White Slip II Ware first appeared only during the LBA IB, but not during the LBA IA, the painting of the alphabetic letters simply could not have occurred at, or even near, the beginning of the LBA I, which is the view that the excavators wrongly have suggested.
The presence of the LMBO at Lachish can be tied to the Israelite conquest of the city under Joshua, as it contains one exclusively Hebrew word (“honey”). Attributing the language behind its writing to Hebrew also is due to a combination of its derivation from the PCH script that the Hebrews invented at Avaris and utilized there for the previous four centuries, and to how it coincides with biblical history and chronology, which attribute the Israelite entry into Canaan to exactly 1406 BC.
The events surrounding the moment when the “servant in charge of honey” dropped the LMBO onto the ground can be placed into a historical context.
On 28 April 1406 BC, the Israelites crossed the Jordan River into Canaan. After overtaking Jericho, Ai, and the armies of five Amorite kings (including Lachish’s) at Gibeon, Joshua’s forces defeated and killed the inhabitants of Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish and Eglon.
During the Israelite attack on Lachish of Stratum S-3b, portions of its city wall were torn down from their heights, never to be rebuilt. While the attack did not result in burning down the city, scattered areas were burned, such as the burnt layer atop which the LMBO was discovered within Building 100.
The attackers created a breach in the city wall opposite the building’s room in which the LMBO was deposited, which is visible in the excavators’ photo, both in the form of burrowing into the wall and fewer courses of preserved stones at the top of the extant portion of the wall.
The Israelites then killed all of Lachish’s residents, just as God had commanded them. Sometime soon after this task was completed and when charred remains filled some areas throughout the city, the Israelite who was given the title “servant in charge of honey” apparently dropped his title-bearing potsherd in Building 100 just within City Wall L1220 as he was exiting Lachish at the point through which his countrymen created a breach in the city wall when entering.
The Israelites chose not to occupy Lachish, which is no surprise for semi-nomads without any desire to reside in large cities after 40 years of wandering in the desert.
Lachish soon was reinhabited by Canaanites or Amorites from somewhere within Canaan. This final and brief occupational level of the LBA I at Lachish (i.e. Stratum S-3a) probably resembled more of a squatter’s town, as the new residents did not restore the city wall, instead building small walls mostly against existing walls that remained intact after the destruction of Stratum S-3b.
Conclusion
The LMBO from Lachish attests to a continuation of the PCH literary corpus that began in Egypt and Sinai during Dynasty 12 and continued there until the middle of Egypt’s Dynasty 18, effectively dismantling the late exodus/conquest theory in the process. The occupational business card of this servant in charge of honey even reflects Moses’s pre-conquest statement that the Israelites would find their new abode in Canaan to be a land flowing with milk and honey (Deut 31:20), as a proud honey-keeper zealously painted his title on the inside of a potsherd from a ceramic milk bowl. The discovery and importance of the LMBO should cause all of us to keep thinking about the Bible’s value to both history and our lives today.
TOP PHOTO: The inner (inscribed) side of the Lachish Milk Bowl Ostracon (left) and the outer (painted) side of the ostracon (right). This Hebrew inscription likely belonged to one of Joshua’s warriors. (credit: J. Dye and L. Webster, Austrian Academy of Sciences)
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