Israeli archaeologists have found a 3,000-year-old (around the time of King David’s reign) ceramic jar at the archaeological site of Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Valley of Elah, Israel. According to the team, the vessel bears the inscription of a name mentioned in the Bible, Eshba’al Ben Beda’.
Letters written in Canaanite script could be discerned on the jar. Image credit: Tal Rogovsky / Israel Antiquities Authority.
“This is the first time that the name Eshba’al has appeared on an ancient inscription in the country. Eshba’al Ben Shaul, who ruled over Israel at the same time as David, is known from the Bible,” said team members Prof Yosef Garfinkel of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University and Dr Saar Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
“Eshba’al was murdered by assassins and decapitated and his head was brought to David in Hebron (II Samuel, Chaps. 3-4).”
“It is interesting to note that the name Eshba’al appears in the Bible, and now also in the archaeological record, only during the reign of King David, in the first half of the 10th century BC.”
“This name was not used later in the First Temple period. The correlation between the biblical tradition and the archaeological finds indicates this was a common name only during that period. The name Beda’ is unique and does not occur in ancient inscriptions or in the biblical tradition.”
According to the team, the fact that the name Eshba’al was incised on a jar suggests that he was an important person.
“He was apparently the owner of a large agricultural estate and the produce collected there was packed and transported in jars that bore his name. This is clear evidence of social stratification and the creation of an established economic class that occurred at the time of the formation of the Kingdom of Judah.”
The archaeologists added: “until about five years ago we knew of no inscriptions dating to the 10th century BC from the Kingdom of Judah.”
“In recent years four inscriptions have been published: two from Khirbet Qeiyafa, one from Jerusalem and one from Bet Shemesh. This completely changes our understanding of the distribution of writing in the Kingdom of Judah and it is now clear that writing was far more widespread than previously thought. It seems that the organization of the kingdom required a cadre of clerks and writers and their activity is also manifested in the appearance of inscriptions.”
