Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions
[9][10] The "shocking" and "exceedingly controversial"[11] inscriptions have been called "the pithoi that launched a thousand articles"[12] due to their influence on the fields of Ancient Near East and Biblical studies, raising and answering many questions about the relationship of Yahweh and Asherah.
Contributing to difficulty, the "incriptions (sic) reveal odd data at different angles"[19] or photos may mislead.
The remaining below, drawn more confidently, are all goddess symbols: a pair of caprids flanking a sacred tree, on bottom a lion.
In the Ta’anach stands, the tree is an upright trunk with several furled fronds coming out from the two sides; in one case six and in the other eight.
There are a couple half-complete drawings of an archer and plenty of animals, also often incomplete due to artist's or history's caprice.
[citation needed] Series 1 are carved into the tops of stone bowls, one of them quite massive and if made offsite an ordeal to carry.
[citation needed] Large letters deeply wet-carved into a shoulder of it read 𐤒𐤓, qof-resh or QR.
[21] The abundance of text on the same surface as a variety of visual art is unusual and complementary, adding to alphabetic and cultural development understanding.
[citation needed] The suckling motif is ubiquitous in the ancient world, seen in Syrian ivory, Egyptian hieroglyph,[22] Semitic pottery,[23] and more.
[9] The central figures have been identified as either representations of Yahweh and Asherah, the Egyptian dwarf-god Bes or Bes-like deities, or even as demonic ritual dancers.
[27] (1) ...lyhwh htmn wlʾšrth (2) ...kl ʾšr yšʾl mʾš ḥnn h wʾm pth wntn lh yhw[h] (3) klbbh (1) ...to Yahweh of the Teman, and to his Asherah, (2) ...all which he asks from a man he will give generously.
(1) wbzrḥ ʾl br... (2) wymsn hrm... (3) wydkn gbnm... (4) wšdš ʾly... (5) lbrk bʿl bym mlḥ[mh...] (6) lšm ʾl bym mlḥ[mh...] (1) And when El shone forth in... (2) and mountains melted... (3) and peaks were crushed... (4) (unknown) (5) to bless Baal on the day of bat[tle...] (6) to the name of El on the day of bat[tle...][32] There has been some scholarly debate on the translation of line 4;[33] some have suggested that the inscription actually reads the more familiar qdš ("holy") rather than wšdš,[34] while others have argued for qdš referring to a placename like Kadesh-Barnea.
[36] Meshel doesn't attempt a full translation of the partially "nonsensical" sequence, but guesses Cain or Kenites for qyn (line 7, bold), which can also mean create or acquire or family, as in KTU 1.3 or Genesis 4.1 or the Khirbet el-Qom ostraca.
[39] Subseries 4.4 and 4.5 are quite fragmentary, really a collection of one- or two-letter chunks, on one item the letters b... hnb abutting part of a drawing of a human head.
Meshel, along with Carol Meyers, attributed this site's significance to its strategic position near major thoroughfares connecting important ancient locales.
The site yielded five categories of inscriptions and artifacts:[43] The paper says that the Kuntillet findings débuted (Nov 30 1975) at the home of the President of Israel.
"[14][51] This is well-attested earlier[52][full citation needed] but unusual in Biblical use with personal or divine names, raising the possibility that "Asherah" refers to some cultic object rather than a deity.
[53] Erhard Blum argues that since the Hebrew phrase corresponds to the regular construction of two nomina regentia with one genitive, it should be translated as "and the ashera of Yahweh.
"[55][56] Reuven Chaim Klein argues that w'šrth means "and His temple/shrine/site," following an obscure usage of the Hebrew root ʿšr and its Aramaic cognate ʿtr.
[58] Josef Tropper's onomastic tetragrammaton reconstructions show that YHWH ends with -a or -ú, depending on its position in names.
He thinks the final -a in Hebrew might signify an absolutive case ending, marked by 'he' as a mater lectionis, notwithstanding common wisdom that makes a suffix impossible.
[62] At least some of the shins (𐤔 not ש) and sameks (𐤎, a support pillar shown in djed style) reflect the Paleo-Hebrew conception of the letters.
Making comparison to the ancient and canonical Song of Deborah,[63] Ahituv 2014 elevates them to the "oldest known Hebrew poem" caught quoting a theophany that predates its scriptor.
[64] The localized Yahweh, "of" Samaria and Teman is unseen in the canon but follows familiar patterns,[65] Ahituv 2014 finds this expected.
[citation needed] The Kuntillet area was on the Gaza Road, a major informal highway, nearer Kadesh Barnea and Elath - (gulf of) Aqaba to the south.
[72]: 329 Some said the lack of evidence of cultic activity meant it had been a mere caravanserei, like an Iron Age truck stop.
(That is, they found no carbonic traces of burned sacrifice, which is considered the sine qua non of old Northwest Semitic cultic activity.
[18][dubious – discuss] Lily Singer-Avitz defends a date around the late 8th century; that is rather near the fall of Samaria in 722 BCE.
Reporter Nir Hasson interviewed the author of the editio princeps:[14] "One day archaeologist Uzi Avner called me and told me that he was looking at the exhibits at the Israel Museum and that he thinks the smaller figure has nothing between its legs.
""Sinai" 2000 precedes but is understood to comprise part I of a greater work, the 2012 editio princeps being its Volume II.
