fbpx

G. M. Grena has noted in a comment below and on a post on biblicalist that a photo of the 10th century ostracon is apparently already online here.  You cannot see the inscription, but you get an idea for the size of the potsherd. 

Grena speculates further on biblicalist:

For those not who didn’t attend last year’s ASOR conference, Prof. Garfinkel had presented a paper, “Khirbet Kiafa: Biblical Azekah”:
http://lmlk.blogspot.com/2007/11/asor-2007-p-6.html
http://lmlk.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/asor-2007-p-6/
Though he did not reveal to me anything about the ostracon, in personal correspondence this morning he confirmed that Kiafa “cannot be” Azekah after having completed their first large scale excavation this past summer. Joseph Lauer also brought to my attention a Hebrew University of Jerusalem web page for the excavation, which states the same thing:
“In the past we suggested an identification with the biblical city of Azeka, but the dating of the Iron Age settlement to the early 10th century BC clearly dispro[ves] our first hypothesis.”
http://qeiyafa.huji.ac.il/history.asp
Normally, it would be somewhat embarrassing to have your thesis “ruined” so quickly (less than a year), but I’m guessing that with the new discovery, nobody associated with the work at this khirbet minds!

The statement that dating the site to the early 10th century means that it cannot be Azekah does not make sense to me, as the story of David and Goliath mentions Azekah at approximately this time (1 Sam 17:1).  Azekah also existed at the time of the Conquest (Joshua 10:10; 15:35), which means that any candidate for the site must have Late Bronze remains.

Another possibility, perhaps too good to suggest, is that the ostracon provides the biblical name of Khirbet Qeiyafa/Kiafa.

Share: