I recently came across three such lists. I am going to choose my top 10 from the various lists, in no particular order:
1. Opium Residue Found in Vessels From 14th century BCE in Israel
A study by the Israel Antiquities Authority, Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute revealed the earliest known evidence of opium use in the world. The opium residue was found in ceramic vessels discovered at Tel Yehud, in central Israel. The vessels date to the 14th century BCE. They were found in Canaanite graves, apparently having been used in local burial rituals.
2. A Papyrus in Montana With the Name ‘Ishmael’
A small scrap of papyrus had been framed and hung on the wall of a home in Montana. The owner said that his mother had been given the papyrus, when she visited Israel in 1965. It dates to around 700 BCE. The owner agreed to donate it to the Israel Antiquities Authority, so that it can be properly studied. The text has four short lines. It starts with: “To Ishmael send …,” suggesting that it is a fragment of a letter.
3. A Tomb From 1300 BCE
An accidentally opened tomb at a park, south of Tel Aviv, revealed treasures that had been sealed away for 3,300 years, when a digging machine fell through the roof of the tomb. When archaeologists entered, they realized they were looking at a burial chamber dating to approximately 1300 BCE. The tomb was never disturbed and the items buried with the important person are still intact. Archaeologists will learn a great deal from the excavation being planned.
4. New Inscriptions Referring to King Hezekiah
Professor Gershon Galil of Haifa University announced the discovery of five new inscriptions of Hezekiah, which confirm material in Tanach. Here is the main one:
“Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, made the pool and the conduit. In the 17th year, in the second (day), in the fourth (month), of king Hezekiah, the king brought the water into the city by a tunnel, the king led the water into the pool. He smote the Philistines from Ekron to Gaza and placed there the oreb unit of the army of Judah. He broke the images and broke in pieces the Nehushtan and he removed the high places and cut down the Asherah. Hezekiah the king accumulated in all his treasure houses and in the house of yud, kay, vav, kay a lot of silver and gold, perfumes and good ointment.”
He is basing this on a barely legible inscription on a rock near Hezekiah’s tunnel (No. 4). It had been thought—over the past 100 years—to have no writing on it. If correct, his readings confirm much of the biblical material about Hezekiah. But scholars have not been able to examine the material, as it has not been published yet.
5. Magnetic Dating
Scholars have discovered a new way of dating the destruction caused by military conquests. In a study in Israel, more than 20 researchers from different countries were able to accurately date 20 destruction layers by reconstructing the direction and/or intensity of the earth’s magnetic field left in the burnt remnants of the sites. For example, they were able to date the destruction of the Philistine city of Gath and several other cities by Hazael, king of Damascus, to around 830 BCE. They, subsequently, discovered that the destruction of Beit Shean and two other sites in northern Israel—which had been associated with Hazael—actually occurred 70-100 years earlier, possibly at the hands of the Egyptian Pharaoh Shoshenk.
6. Decipherment of Linear Elamite
Scholars have figured out how to read “Linear Elamite” (a stage of Elamite from the second half of the third millennium BCE). A team of academics used a bilingual inscription written in Linear Elamite and Akkadian cuneiform to figure out more than 90 percent of the linear Elamite symbols. About forty known texts in Linear Elamite exist today, all in Iran. The nation of Elam is mentioned many times in the Bible. See, e.g., Genesis 10:22 (a son of Shem) and 14:1 (ruled by Chedarlaomer). Shushan was one of the main cities in ancient Elam. Shushan existed as early as the fourth millennium BCE. Elam became part of Madai at the end of the seventh century BCE and the Persians conquered Madai in the sixth century BCE.
7. Curses on Mount Ebal
Archaeologists missed a tiny tablet when they excavated Mount Ebal 40 years ago, but it was found during a sifting process in 2019. Folded inside the tablet was a message that scholars have been able to read with a CAT scan. Scholars announced an interpretation of the tablet in March 2022. They claim the writing is in an early form of Hebrew which they date to about 1200 BCE. They claim it reads, “Cursed, cursed, cursed—cursed by God, yud kay vav kay. You will die cursed. Cursed you will surely die. Cursed by yud kay vav kay—cursed, cursed, cursed.” If this was written by an Israelite, it would be the earliest inscription we have by an Israelite. But these scholars have not made the text public yet, and their interpretation of the writing will likely be disputed.
8. A Sentence in Canaanite (pre-Israelite Hebrew) From 1700 BCE
This is an inscription on an ivory comb excavated at Lachish. The comb was dug up in 2016, but it was not until 2022, that one of the excavation team members noticed scratches that turned out to be words.
The earliest alphabetic writings known to us come from around 1700 BCE from Egypt and the Sinai. This is, perhaps, when and where alphabetic writing was invented. The alphabetic findings until now from this period (before the Israelites arrived, perhaps, in the 13th century BCE) have been very limited: one-to-four words.
Now, we have an inscription from this pre-Israelite period with a full sentence. The inscription is estimated to date to 1700 BCE. Here is the sentence: “May this tusk remove the lice of hair and beard.”
9. Return of Rare First Century CE Coin to Israel
In September 2022—in an official ceremony in New York City—the United States returned an extremely rare coin to Israel which was stolen and smuggled out of Israel years ago. It is a quarter shekel coin made of silver, minted by Jewish leaders in the fourth year of the Jewish revolt (66-73 CE). Only a handful of such coins survive. The minting of such silver coins by Jewish leaders was—in effect—a declaration of independence from Rome.
10. 200-Year Anniversary of the Deciphering of the Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is a stele inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Egypt 196 BCE. (“Rosetta” is the Greek name of the city Rashid, near where it was found.) The top and middle texts are in ancient Egyptian (hieroglyphic and demotic). The bottom is in ancient Greek. The stone enabled the deciphering of the Egyptian scripts. It was found in 1799, by a French officer during Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt. When the British defeated the French, they took the stone to London. Since 1802, it has been on display at the British Museum. Jean-François Champollion announced a major breakthrough in the deciphering process in 1822, in a lecture in Paris. Others had been working on the deciphering prior to him.
This column is based on top 10 lists published online—in December 2022—in: 1) Bible History Daily, 2) Israel Antiquities Authority and 3) an article by Gordon Govier.
Mitchell First can be reached at [email protected]. Given his name, he is always interested in “firsts” and “top 10 lists.”
