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Hebrew Inscriptions

This page contains a catalogue of ancient Hebrew inscriptions with some bibliography. All inscriptions are divided into one of five chronological periods: Early Alphabetic; 10th-9th cent. BCE; 8th-7th cent. BCE; 6th-5th cent. BCE; or 4th cent. BCE through 2nd cent. CE. The page is perpetually in progress.

The corpus of ancient Hebrew inscriptions includes a variety of genres from different regions and time periods. The genres include, inter alia, letters, receipts, amulets, and writing exercises, all of which vary in material production from engraved lapidary inscriptions to ink on papyrus. While the study of epigraphic Hebrew began in the late 19th century, the corpus of legible texts has steadily increased from the first known Hebrew inscriptions (the Silwan funerary and Siloam Tunnel inscriptions) to a collection of some several hundred texts, mostly short and/or fragmentary in nature. For example, Davies’s Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions, vol. 1 (1991) includes approximately 500 texts, which increased by 91 more in vol. 2 (2004); Lemaire estimates a corpus of some 700 published texts. For a helpful overview, see Aḥituv, Garr, and Fassberg, “Epigraphic Hebrew,” in A Handbook of Biblical Hebrew (2016) as well as any number of the available text collections, such as Donner and Röllig, Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften 1–3; Gibson, Syrian Semitic Inscriptions. I: Hebrew and Moabite; Pardee, Handbook of Ancient Hebrew Letters; Davies, Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions (2 vols); Renz and Röllig, Handbuch der althebräischen Inschriften (4 vols); Dobbs-Allsopp, Roberts, Seow and Whitaker, Hebrew Inscriptions; and most recently, Aḥituv, Echoes from the Past.

Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from Canaan (linguistically unidentifiable)

  • Lachish Ivory Lice Comb (ca. 1700 BCE?). See ed. pr. here.
  • Gezer Potsherd (ca. 1500 BCE?)
  • Lachish Ostracon with Early Alphabetic Inscription (15th cent. BCE).
    • See ed. pr., Höflmayer et al. 2021, here. See BAS article here.
  • Lachish Ewer (second half of 13th cent. BCE).
  • ‘Izbet Ṣarṭah abecedary (12-11th cent. BCE)
  • Tel Zayit abecedary (11th-10th cent. BCE)

10th-9th cent. BCE

  • Gezer Calendar (dialect disputed; 10th cent. BCE)
  • Tel ‘Amal Jar (late 10th cent. BCE)
  • Jerusalem Jars #1-3 (10th-9th cent. BCE)
  • Khirbet El-Qom Inscriptions #1-9 (10th-9th cent. BCE)
  • Ophel Inscriptions #1-7 (10th-9th cent. BCE)
  • Tel Ira #1-7 (10th-9th cent. BCE)
  • Benyaw Inscription from Abel Beth Maacah (9th cent. BCE)
  • Kuntillet Ajrud Inscriptions #1-55 (KA 1.1-4; 2.1-28; 3.1-17; 4.1-6; 9th-8th cent. BCE)
  • Hazor #1-8 (9th-8th cent. BCE)

8th-7th cent. BCE

  • Tel Dan #1-2 (early 8th cent. BCE)
  • Samaria Ostraca, ca. 115 (early to mid-8th cent. BCE)
  • Jerusalem Pomegranate Sceptre Head (authenticity disputed; mid-eighth cent. BCE)
  • Beth Shean Inscriptions (2x; 8th cent. BCE)
  • Tell Qasile Ostraca #1-2 (8th cent. BCE)
  • Siloam Tunnel Inscription (late 8th cent. BCE)
  • Beersheba Inscriptions #1-10 (8th-7th cent. BCE)
  • Gibeon (el-Jib) Inscriptions (ca. 62; 8th-7th cent. BCE)
  • Ramat Raḥel (8th-7th cent. BCE)
  • Silwan Inscriptions #1-4 (8th-7th cent. BCE)
  • Khirbet el-Meshash (7th cent BCE)
  • Tel Beit Mirsim #1-6 (ca. 700 BCE)
  • LMLK Jar Handles (ca. 2000x; late 8th-early 7th cent. BCE)
  • Meṣad Ḥashavyahu #1-7 (late 7th cent. BCE)
  • Moussaieff Ostraca (late 7th cent. BCE)
  • Naḥal Yishai / En-Gedi (late 7th cent. BCE)
  • Ketef Hinnom silver plaques #1-2 (late 7th to early 6th cent. BCE)
  • Ḥorvat Uza #1-3 (7th-6th cent. BCE)

6th-5th cent. BCE

  • Arad Ostraca #1-112 (late 7th to early 6th cent. BCE)
  • Lachish Ostraca #1-36 (late 7th to early 6th cent. BCE)
    • See esp.: Lach 1; Lach 2; Lach 3; Lach 4; Lach 5; and Lach 6.
  • Khirbet Beit Lei Graffito #1-4 (early 6th cent. BCE)
  • Khirbet Beit Lei Inscriptions #1-3 (early 6th cent. BCE)
  • Wine Decanter Inscriptions #1-2 (unprovenanced; ca. 6th cent. BCE)

4th cent. BCE – 2nd cent. CE

  • Wadi Murabba’at papyri (2x; 1st-2nd cent. CE)