{"page":"\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/resources-c03aa079.css\" /\u003e\n\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/lp_boclips_stylesheets-517835be.css\" media=\"all\" /\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-title='Archaeologist believes to have found oldest Hebrew inscription' data-url='/boclips/videos/5c54bb96d8eafeecae1262d3' data-video-url='/boclips/videos/5c54bb96d8eafeecae1262d3' id='bo_player_modal'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='boclips-resource-page modal-dialog panel-container'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='react-notifications-root'\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-header'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-type'\u003e\n\u003ci aria-hidden='true' class='fai fa-regular fa-circle-play'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\nVideo\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch1 class='rp-title' id='video-title'\u003e\nArchaeologist believes to have found oldest Hebrew inscription\n\u003c/h1\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-actions'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='mr-1'\u003e\n\u003ca class=\"btn btn-success\" data-posthog-event=\"Signup: LP Signup Activity\" data-posthog-location=\"body_link_boclips\" data-remote=\"true\" href=\"/subscription/new\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGet Free Access\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"\"\u003e for 10 Days\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e!\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-body'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-info'\u003e\n\u003cdiv aria-label='Hide resource details' class='rp-hide-info' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u0026times;\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Expand resource details' class='rp-expand-info fai fa-solid fa-up-right-and-down-left-from-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Compress resource details' class='rp-compress-info fai fa-solid fa-down-left-and-up-right-to-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-rating'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='resource-pool'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-label'\u003ePublisher:\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-name'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='text'\u003e\u003ca data-publisher-id=\"30356011\" href=\"/search?publisher_ids%5B%5D=30356011\"\u003eCurated Video\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-description'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='short-description'\u003eJerusalem - 26 October 20081. Yossi Garfinkel, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University taking seat and taking ceramic shard out of box2. Garfinkel showing the ceramic shard3. Close up of inscription, UPSOUND (Hebrew) Garfinkel...\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='full-description hide'\u003eJerusalem - 26 October 2008\u003cbr/\u003e1. Yossi Garfinkel, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University taking seat and taking ceramic shard out of box\u003cbr/\u003e2. Garfinkel showing the ceramic shard\u003cbr/\u003e3. Close up of inscription, UPSOUND (Hebrew) Garfinkel explaining about the ancient Hebrew letters\u003cbr/\u003e4. Close of ceramic shard\u003cbr/\u003e5. More of inscription\u003cbr/\u003e6. SOUNDBITE: (English) Yossi Garfinkel, archaeologist at Hebrew University:\u003cbr/\u003e\"This is the oldest Hebrew inscription ever found. It is 3000 years old, from the time of King David. It was found in archaeological excavations this summer at Hirbet Qeiyafa. We don't know yet what is written here because we are still working on it, but we can see very clear letters like \"Alef\" and \"Bet\" and \"Tet\" an other Hebrew letters and we can read here several words like 'judge', like 'king', and like 'eved'- 'slave.\"\u003cbr/\u003eHirbet Qeiyafa, central Israel - 23 October 2008\u003cbr/\u003e7. Pan right of Hirbet Qeiyafa archaeological site\u003cbr/\u003e8. Various of site \u003cbr/\u003e9. Yossi Garfinkel bending down looking at findings\u003cbr/\u003e10. Garfinkel standing near the excavation \u003cbr/\u003e11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Yossi Garfinkel, archaeologist at Hebrew University:\u003cbr/\u003e\"It is not according to the archaeological findings itself. We did not find any inscription saying: 'I am King David, I built this city'. Maybe one day we will find it. Now the dating is purely scientific. It is not the bible and not archaeology. It's physics. It is according to olive pits which we found here in the destruction lay of the site and they are from the time of King David. Not earlier and not later.\"\u003cbr/\u003e12. Garfinkel walking along the wall\u003cbr/\u003e13. Rabbi Barnea Levi Selavan reading from bible \u003cbr/\u003e14. Close of of bible and UPSOUND: (English) Rabbi Barnea Levi Selavan director of Foundation Stone reading from bible:\u003cbr/\u003e\"And Shaul and the man of Israel gathered and they camped in the valley of Elah and they arranged for war to face the Philistines.\"\u003cbr/\u003e15. SOUNDBITE (English) Rabbi Barnea Levi Selavan, Director of Foundation Stone:\u003cbr/\u003e\"When I stand here in this site and I see the hills and valleys and I am looking to the sea, and I have a line of hills protecting me, and I see this massive fortifications, in one moment I grasp I am in the biblical scene of Philistia against Judah, and this is the front line.\"\u003cbr/\u003e16. Pan right on view over looking Elah Valley\u003cbr/\u003eAn Israeli archaeologist digging at a hilltop south of Jerusalem believes a ceramic shard found in the ruins of an ancient town bears the oldest Hebrew inscription ever discovered.\u003cbr/\u003eThe site overlooks the Elah Valley, said to be the scene of the slingshot showdown between David and the Philistine giant Goliath, and lies near the ruins of Goliath's hometown in the Philistine metropolis of Gath.\u003cbr/\u003eIt is a find that could provide an important glimpse into the culture and language of the Holy Land at the time of the Bible.\u003cbr/\u003eThe 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 archaeologist in charge of the new dig at Hirbet Qeiyafa.\u003cbr/\u003eOther scholars however are hesitant to embrace Garfinkel's interpretation of the finds, which were made public on Thursday. \u003cbr/\u003eThe discoveries are already being wielded in a vigorous and ongoing argument over whether the Bible's account of events and geography is meant to be taken literally.\u003cbr/\u003eHirbet Qeiyafa sits near the modern Israeli city of Beit Shemesh in the Judean foothills, an area that was once the frontier between the hill-dwelling Israelites and their enemies, the coastal Philistines. \u003cbr/\u003eA teenage volunteer found the curved pottery shard, 15 centimetres by 15 centimetres, in July near the stairs and stone washtub of an excavated home. \u003cbr/\u003eIt was later discovered to bear five lines of characters known as proto-Canaanite, a precursor of the Hebrew alphabet.\u003cbr/\u003eCarbon-14 analysis of burnt olive pits found in the same layer of the site dated them to between 1,000 and 975 B.C., the same time as the Biblical golden age of David's rule in Jerusalem.\u003cbr/\u003eScholars have identified other, smaller Hebrew fragments from the 10th century B.C., but the script, which Garfinkel suggests might be part of a letter, predates the next significant Hebrew inscription by between 100 and 200 years. \u003cbr/\u003eHistory's best-known Hebrew texts, the Dead Sea scrolls, were penned on parchment beginning 850 years later.\u003cbr/\u003eThe shard is now kept in a university safe while philologists translate it, a task expected to take months. But several words have already been tentatively identified, including ones meaning \"judge,\" \"slave\" and \"king.\"\u003cbr/\u003eThe Israelites were not the only ones using proto-Canaanite characters, and other scholars suggest it is difficult - perhaps impossible - to conclude the text is Hebrew and not a related tongue spoken in the area at the time. \u003cbr/\u003eGarfinkel bases his identification on a three-letter verb from the inscription meaning \"to do,\" a word he said existed only in Hebrew.\u003cbr/\u003e\"This is the oldest Hebrew inscription that has been found,\" he concludes.\u003cbr/\u003eOther prominent Biblical archaeologists warned against jumping to conclusions, one suggesting that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far. \u003cbr/\u003eSome scholars and archaeologists argue that the Bible's account of David's time inflates his importance and that of his kingdom, and is essentially myth, perhaps rooted in a shred of fact.\u003cbr/\u003eBut if Garfinkel's claim is borne out, it would bolster the case for the Bible's accuracy by indicating the Israelites could record events as they happened, transmitting the history that was later written down in the Old Testament several hundred years later.\u003cbr/\u003eIt also would mean that the settlement  a fortified town with a 30-foot-wide monumental gate, a central fortress and a wall running 700 meters in circumference - was probably inhabited by Israelites.\u003cbr/\u003eAn Israel Antiquities Authority ranger noticed the unusual scale of the walls while patrolling the area in 2003. Three years later he interested Garfinkel, and after a preliminary dig they began work in earnest this summer. \u003cbr/\u003eThey have excavated only 4 percent of the six-acre settlement so far.\u003cbr/\u003eArchaeology has turned up only scant finds from David's time in the early 10th century B.C., leading some scholars to suggest his kingdom may have been little more than a small chiefdom or that he might not have existed at all.\u003cbr/\u003eGarfinkel believes building fortifications like those at Hirbet Qeiyafa could not have been a local initiative: The walls would have required moving 200,000 tons of stone, a task too big for the 500 or so people who lived there. \u003cbr/\u003eInstead, it would have required an organised kingdom like the one the Bible says David ruled.\u003cbr/\u003eModern Zionism has traditionally seen archaeology as a way of strengthening the Jewish claim to Israel and regarded David's kingdom as the glorious ancestor of the new Jewish state. 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