Friday, December 08, 2023

Ebal curse tablet

 

THE MOUNT EBAL LEADEN CURSE TABLET

AND THE CRISIS IN ALPHABET RESEARCH

Brian Edric Colless  MA BD PhD ThD

 


This remarkable little artefact (a mere 2 x 2 centimetres), resting on the hand of the archaeologist Scott Stripling, is believed (by Stripling and some other scholars) to be an imprecation and execration tablet, a curse document, technically known as a defixio. It was discovered in December 2019, on Mount Ebal (near modern Nablus, ancient Shekem, on the "West Bank" of the Jordan River), in the course of an expedition of the Associates for Biblical Research, led by Scott Stripling. It has now appeared officially in a preliminary publication:


"You are Cursed by the God YHW:" an early Hebrew inscription from Mt. Ebal
https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9?fbclid=IwAR3G9ih5D98ZCB7t1Wk7fIXfVerZzXAdu2Uiw4yqP8KYDCDEvFbnh3Qs7LM

The story of its discovery and its decipherment is told here:
A Tsunami from Mt. Ebal: Cursed by the God Yahu
https://www.academia.edu/104014709/A_Tsunami_from_Mt_Ebal_BAS_Spring_2023
 Scott Stripling, Abigail Leavitt, Pieter Gert van der Veen, Bible and Spade, 36.2 (2023)

 My tentative opinion is that the editors have largely succeeded in deciphering the two inscriptions (interior and exterior), clearly discerning the presence of the roots for "die" (MWT) and "curse" ('RR); but some of their interpretations may be slightly awry. 
Certainly, the diminutive letters are a handicap to attaining certainty with regard to the intended meaning of the texts, but the microscopic inscription on the tiny lice comb from Lakish has been successfully read, according to my interpretation. Some of the inscriptions that are coming to light from early Israel show that a syllabic form of the proto-alphabet was being employed in the period of the Judges,  and this may also be the case in this defixio.
    For my part, I will suggest some other possibilities.
    Instead of the indicative mood, I will propose the imperative mood for some of the verbs: "Die!" (MT). "Be cursed!" (HT`R).


"You are Cursed by the God YHW:"
an early Hebrew inscription from Mt. Ebal
  
Scott Stripling, Gershon Galil, Pieter Gert van der Veen,
 
Ivana Kumpova, Jaroslav Valach, Daniel Vavrik

 The contributors to this publication have worked diligently to complete the laborious task, endeavouring to release their results promptly, for the benefit of other scholars. "Ik kijk enorm uit naar het artikel", someone said on the Peter van der Veen Facebook page, when Pieter had announced some time ago that he was producing an article about the leaden tablet, in collaboration with five others; and this eager expectation was shared by myself.  The chief interpreters of the inscriptions were Gershon Galil and Pieter Gert van der Veen, known as Peter on Facebook; his page is where the news was released in May 2023, and where an academic storm raged. I am truly grateful for this preliminary communication, although the work is not quite finished. Only one of the two curse-inscriptions has been published, and surprisingly it is the almost inaccessible "Inner B", the  interior "cursary" (-ary as in syllabary and consonantary, two concepts I will discuss here) or malediction, if you shun neologisms; but it certainly requires much more than a mere cursory glance. In any case, it is good to have this communiqué freely accessible on our desktops (literal and electronical). Unfortunately, there seems to be a curse embedded in it, against anyone who dares to make a printed copy of the essay (and likewise in the "Tsunami" article). In my printout, every initial A (countless in number) was replaced by a 7, and had to be corrected with a sharp pencil; and every n unaccountably and uncountably became a colon (:); it is not a pretty sight. These things are sent to test our patience and perseverance, without which we would not achieve success in our decipherment labours.


 

Bottom: the folded leaden tablet, unopened.
Top right: the exterior inscription,"Outer A".
Top left: traces ("bulges") of the "Inner B" text on the outside .
The red spot indicates the broken corner of the object; apparently it should be positioned as the top right corner when reading the Outer A text.
   The engraver had written an elaborate "cursary" (my word for a collection of curses, in the sense of invocations of doom upon an offender, incantations of death, involving a deity, and therefore not magic spells but imprecations). Yahwe (rather than Yahu), the god named in this conjuration, would be the agent of the curses, analogous to  ancient treaties, in which the gods named in the covenant administer the curses and blessings written in the document.
 
  This was the procedure, perhaps: a small strip of lead was prepared, and on one half of its face the cursary was inscribed with a stylus; the unmarked part of the document was then folded over as an envelope, and the elaborate curse was repeated in tiny writing on the outside; thus the imprecation was recorded in duplicate, and even in triplicate, as the imprint of the first impression was bulging on the rear side to some extent. Alternatively, both inscriptions may have been written before the metal was folded over. Yet another possibility is that there is only one inscription, Outer A, which made indentations right through to the back of the folded piece; in this case, the object used was already folded, and possibly intended for some other purpose, but the scribe adapted it as a vehicle for his curses.
   I will work with the  hypothesis that there are two inscriptions, an outer and an inner text. How was the  concealed inscription read? Surprisingly, against our preconceptions about the metal lead (plumbum) being impenetrable to X-rays,  the results were achieved by employing "X-ray computed tomography and advanced data processing", producing and analysing the photographs of 46 "slices".
    See the moving picture of the detecting process:
https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1186%2Fs40494-023-00920-9/MediaObjects/40494_2023_920_MOESM1_ESM.gif
    As is my custom, I will ponder whether the revealed letters belong to a syllabary, and thus represent syllables (consonant plus vowel, syllabograms), not simply consonants (consonantograms).
    By the way, there is a word "leaden" (like "golden") which helps in decoding the multi-purpose 'lead" (liid or led?); I have just seen it in action in a Father Brown story of G. K. Chesterton. 

 

    Sketch of the interior text ("Inner B"), after Pieter van der Veen:
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10161143436379948&set=a.10153844636149948

   Presentation
   This drawing is based on his painstaking examination of the photographs (Tables 2-9), and it agrees substantially with the published drawing of Gershon Galil (reproduced further below).
    Notice the divine name, with letters highlighted and annotated by myself: LYHW ("by Yahweh"), and around it  various occurrences of the passive participle 'RR ("cursed"), not `RWR (the reading proposed by Galil).
    Tentatively,  we can affirm that there are two large stick figures of a jubilating person, one above the other, representing the consonant /h/ or a syllable (h with a vowel).  The same pattern is observable on the exterior text,(Outer A). Gershon interprets each figure as YHW.
    Gershon and Pieter also detect two smaller versions of this letter H, next to the highlighted L of LYHW. 
    A reproduction of Galil’s drawing (adapted by Brian Donnelly-Lewis) is viewable below.

For the interior inscription (Inner B) Gershon Galil has:
 [A] You are cursed by the god Yhw, cursed.
 
[B] You will die, cursed :
 
[B] cursed, you will surely die.
 
[A] Cursed you are by Yhw , cursed.
Gershon suspects that the text is chiasmic (A B B A): thus the first two statements are repeated in reverse order, in his interpretation, and this is an elegant proposal.
    However, perhaps there is only one instance of LYHW, situated at the centre, and  all the curse participles in the text are relating to it: "cursed by YHW" ('RR LYHW).
     Where is the starting point of this jumble of letters?
 Galil has numbered the characters that he has detected, 48 in total, and has divided them into three groups or "clusters":
[1] (A=1-17) beginning low down with ' TH, "thou", and meandering to the top.
[2] (BB=18-33) beginning at the top, near the H-sign, with TMT 'RR, "You will die accursed", then running down the opposite side, with "cursed you will surely die".
[3] (A=34-48) beginning at the bottom with "cursed" and circling around the large H of YHW.
This is an elegant reconstruction, but it may contain flaws.

   I will now outline my own case for reading the hidden inscription, on the assumption that Gershon and Pieter have correctly identified the characters in the recovered text, though I will offer alternative interpretations for a few of them. My basic principle in such endeavours is to recognize that the person who inscribed these marks on the leaden tablet knew what the intended meaning is, but it will probably be difficult for us to decipher the significance of the signs. Here is my tentative transcription and translation, employing the numbers assigned to the characters by Gershon Galil, beginning with his yellow 1 and 2, but not adhering to the connecting lines.
Gershon Galil’s drawing of the interior inscription with the characters numbered, and with coloured lines added by Brian Donnelly-Lewis. This is a mirror-image of the other drawing reproduced above.

1 2   3 39 38 37  41 40   42 43 16 45 23 24 
’ T   H  T     R    L  H    Y  H  W     R  R 
Be thou (’t) cursed (ht’r) by (l) YHW himself (h),
accursed one (’rr).
 
25 26 27  28 29 30  44 31 32 33  45 46 48  34 36 35
   R   R    Y  M  T   W  T  M  T      R  R     R  R  
An accursed one (’rr) he puts to death (ymt),
and so (w) thou shalt die (tmt) accursed
(’rr),
accursed one (’rr).

20 21 22  10 11 12 17  9 8  13 19 18  14 15 7  4  5  6  
 T      R   L  Y   H W    L  W M  T    ’   R  R ’  R  R
Thou art cursed (t’r) by (l) YHW God (’l),
and so (w) die (mt)
accursed (’rr),
accursed one (’rr).

    This arrangement into three parts would demolish the fourfold chiastic structure of Gershon Galil (ABBA, described above), though he himself divides the text into three “clusters” (7).

    Modification
    Here I will point out the differences between Gershon’s reading of the inscription, and explain my modified arrangement of the meandering letters; but I fear that my presentation will be painfully abstruse. I have already signaled above that I would tentatively change some of the verbs from indicative mood to imperative. Thus, Gershon’s ’th ’rwr (1-7: “Thou art cursed”) becomes ’t ht’r (1 2 3 39 38 37: “Be thou cursed”); his version has the passive participle of the root ’rr, “curse”, and mine has the imperative singular masculine, on the pattern of the reflexive and passive hitqattel; and my reading ht’r is based on the presumption that the double R is not repeated, on the analogy of hw’r, the hoqtal form, attested as yw’r, “he is under a curse” (he is caused to be cursed!).
    Notice my understanding of three instances of ’rr, not as emphasising the curse, but as addressing the accused as “accursed one”.  This choice raises the question of the identity of the addressee, the “thou” in the curse.  The editors report (1b) that ancient mass-produced curse tablets had blank spaces where names could be added; but our leaden defixio apparently has a general reference (To whom it may concern). It was discovered on the mountain of cursing (Deuteronomy 27:13), and it might be directed against covenant-breakers, as defined by the twelve curses stipulated by Moses (27:15-26); or it could apply to a person who desecrated the altar, since this is where the tablet was found.
    The reason I have moved away from Gershon’s approach is the final h on his reading of ’th (= ’attâ); this is a convention for indicating the long vowel â, which came later, and was presumably not available in the Bronze Age for this very old inscription. Similarly, Gershon’s  ’rwr (’arûr, “cursed”) has a waw representing û, and again it is doubtful that this system was operating in West Semitic writing at this early stage. The consonants W and H and Y, when they are standing for vowels, are known as matres lectionis, “mothers of reading”, aids to pronouncing words in a text. 
    Gershon sees six examples of ’rwr (’arûr, “cursed”) in the interior inscription; my total is five instances of ’rr, without w; but I also have ht’r, “Be cursed”, perhaps twice, and in one case (bottom left on Gershon’s drawing, and bottom right on Pieter’s sketch) it is accompanied by ’t (“thou”), hence “Be thou cursed”. In the other occurrence of ht’r, at the top, there is no “thou”, but Pieter has an additional Alep there, and perchance a T is lurking undetected. At this point, Gershon finds a sequence L’L YHW, “by (l) YHW God (’l)”, and I have provisionally accepted this, although the first four of the six letters (excepting HW) are “ghosts”, and may have been intentionally erased by the scribe.  Even so, to achieve my construction HT’R  L YHW  ’ L  W  M T (“Be cursed by YHW God, and die”) I would have to use the stick figure H (12) in a double role; and if I wanted to write the Divine Name in its customary four-letter form, the Tetragrammaton YHWH, I would need to call sign number 12 into service for a third time. However, the editors seem to concur on reading YHW, without the final H, as the form YHWH is presumably a later use of a mater lectionis. Consequently, I now propose, tentatively, to use the H-figure only once, and reduce HT’R to T`R, “Thou art cursed” (Qal passive, or Niqtal, or Hoqtal?).
    Confronted by a host of such evil demons and accursed gremlins, we now descend into the depths of the slough of despond, and my premonition of “abstruseness” is upon us. You will be lost in the forest of numbers, and be drowned in the sea of letters, unless you have copies of the two drawings close at hand.
    In passing, on a cautionary note, as we proceed through our analysis we need to explore the possibility of scribal errors in the text, and confront the problem of seemingly superfluous signs (H40, W47). I know that some people would say I am wasting my time, and frittering away my life chasing phantoms, but this is an important task.

    Identification
    First, Gershon Galil has miraculously found enough Waws for his six ’RWRs, and although I have reduced those half-dozen ’RWRs to five ’RRs, I still have one long-stem Waw (47) left dangling in the air, together with R46 and R48; Gershon has constructed his sixth ’RWR from this cluster (45-48), and this seems to be credible, with the Waw as an indicator of the vowel û. However, Footnote 9 states that two instances of ’Alep are faint, and their “existence and form could not be established with certainty”, and therefore they “appear in square brackets” in the transcriptions; and these two weak instances are in the central [45]-48 cluster, a vertical sequence of signs, which we are examining here, and the [34]-37 group, which runs horizontally in boustrophedon fashion at the bottom. Both these examples are part of Gershon’s third curse, beginning and ending the sentence (“Cursed art thou by Yhw, cursed.”). Each ’Alep is an unmistakable bovine head, as drawn by Gershon and by Pieter; each Waw is a small circle on a long stem, in contrast to W16, a larger circle on a short stem; each Resh has the typical angular (“rhomboid” or diamond-shaped) head on a neck, with one possible instance of the more conventional triangular head (<|) at position 22.
    Although Gershon has decided that the Resh has an angular head, and the Waw has a circular top, he does not adhere strictly to this rule, and he must sometimes be assuming that an error has been made by the scribe. Thus, in identifying the letters in another of his ’RWR sequences (4-7, centre-left on his drawing, sinistrograde, moving from right to left, but dextrograde on Pieter’s mirror-image), where all three standing figures have a pointed top (on his drawing, but Pieter’s trio is more ambiguous), he accepts the middle one as Waw, followed by a large Resh (7), which seems to belong to another group. In this regard, I propose for consideration two adjoining sets of three-letter “cursed” words (but ’RR, not ’RWR): 4-5-6 , 14-15-7; Gershon’s versions of these, with Waw included, are: 4-5-6-7, 14-15-16-17. The Galil numbers seem to fit together nicely, but he is the one who numbered the signs! On closer inspection each of them falls under suspicion: 4-7 is slightly tricky, as already noted; but 14-17 is problematic; it begins with an ox-head, moves to a tiny inverted R located next to it, then to a Waw with a short stem below the Alep and next to the head of the central figure with upraised forearms, and finally to a small inverted R between the legs of the upper exulting figure.
    My misgiving about this 14-17 group is the Waw (16), which seems unnecessary in ’RR (“cursed”) but necessary in the divine name YHW. Having snapped up W16 for this curse-group, Gershon has to find an alternative, and so he contrarily crosses over to the cluster R46 W47 W44, and chooses W44, the furthest letter away from Y42 H43; he rejects W47, because it is needed for his 45-48 group, which I have mentioned previously; and I want W44 to be a copula, “and thou shalt die”. Note carefully that W47 (which I could not fit into my reconstruction of the text), with a small circular top and a long stem, is quite unlike any of the other instances of Waw; and W48 is a smaller version of W13 (with an oblique stem), both of which I interpret as wa, “and”, preceding a verb: 44-31-32-33, WTMT, “and thou shalt die”;  and 13-19-18, WMT, “and die!”.
      Now, with one eye on the right side of Gershon’s drawing (with the helpful coloured lines added by Brian Donnelly-Lewis), and the other on the left side of Pieter’s (my copies are pasted side by side on a piece of cardboard, Pieter right, Gershon left, and these two sections of the inscription are adjacent to each other), we perceive some startling differences. So, when I say that there may be scribal errors, this could apply to the original scribe, and also to the two recent copyists.
   At the top, Pieter has four ’Aleps:
    (1) no counterpart in Gershon’s scheme, but might be part of ’T, “thou”, if a Taw could be found as a companion for it;
    (2) corresponding to Gershon’s A9 (in his yellow line), a ghost letter, intertwined with my WMT, “and die!”, and taken with a ghostly L8 to say ’L, “God”, to be linked with YHW, 11-12-17;
    (3) A21 (in the blue-green line), which Gershon includes in another ’RWR (21-24), running vertically downwards;
    (4) A25 (also blue-green), near Pieter’s unique Alep (Number 1, above); in a highly dubious ’RWR (25-28); this demands a detailed examination; the Alep (25) is a large ox-head, in an oblique stance, with a long cross-bar, like the ’alep in the standardized consonantary of Iron Age II; in Gershon’s drawing it has two R-letters (26 27) next to it, each with a pointed, not rounded, head; then comes a vertical letter (28), with a long stem that has two oblique prongs at the end of it, and for my eyes (looking at the photograph of the letter, 3A on Table 8) it is a Yod, but the accompanying drawing (3B on Table 8) has it as a triangle on a stem, thus making it possibly equivalent to R22, situated between the horns of the Alep (25), but inverted and with a longer stem; surprisingly, Pieter’s account of this sequence is different, in that his R27 or W27 is separated from its partner, and its head is resting on the head of R28, and in this stance it could indeed be Waw, like W13 and W44; but my preference is to read this sequence as ’RR YMT WTMT ’RR: “An accursed one he puts to death, and thou shalt die, accursed one”.
    It seems that I am prompt to propose problems but slow to supply solutions.  In view of all the uncertainties involved here, occasioned by the ancient scribe with his minuscule marks, and also by the recent copyists in their attempts to decipher them as writing, it might be better to stay silent, and join the defeatists, who have withdrawn from the struggle before victory is won, even though the end is in sight.  Unfortunately, there is no  complete photograph of the Inner B inscription, but we have miniature images of all the recoverable signs, and the drawings are proving to be fairly reliable. However, when there are discrepancies between the presentations of Gershon and Pieter, as we have just seen with the hypothetical ’RWR (25-28), our confidence is slightly shaken, but the ARR form is preferable to ARWR, on the whole.
    As I write this ramble I am trying to follow the trail of the meandering letters, and in the process I have experimented with various combinations, and have now managed to add a sixth case of ’RR to my second sentence of three, producing: “thou shalt die accursed (45 46 47), accursed one (34 36 35)”; but to achieve this I have also employed Alep 45 in the ’RR at the end of the first sentence (45 23 24). My rationalisation for this is Gershon’s square brackets around two instances of Alep, and Pieter’s extra Alep at the top of the text! Apparently, neither drawing gives an entirely accurate picture of the inscription. Perhaps the outer version of the curse will clarify the matter, or it may increase the confusion.

1 2   3 39 38 37  41 40   42 43 16  4  5 6 
 T   H  T     R    L   H     Y  H  W      R  R    
Be thou (’t) cursed (ht’r) by (l) YHW himself (h),
accursed one (’rr).

25 26 27  28 29 30  44 31 32 33   34 36 35
    R   R    Y  M  T     W  T  M  T         R   R    
The accursed  (’rr) he puts to death (ymt), and (w) thou shalt die (tmt),
accursed one (’rr).

20 21 22   10 11 12 17  9 8  13 19 18  14 15 7 45 23 24 
  T      R     L   Y  H W    L  W M  T      R R      R   R    
Thou art  cursed (t’r) by (l) YHW God (’l), and so (w) die (mt) accursed (’rr) ,
accursed one (’rr).
 

    Thus, I have tentatively accepted that the inscription does indeed include the statement “You are cursed by the God YHW”, but this is not my final decision.
    Time now to confront the problem of YHW(H), starting with a seemingly superfluous H (40), which could have been attached to YHW to produce YHWH. At present I have proposed lahu (41 40), “by him, YHW”, or “by YHW himself”; but this is not tidy, and may not be idiomatic; H40 could fit at the end of the circle of signs producing LYHW(H) (41 42 43 16 40). Notice that H3, H43, and H12 are all standing persons, while H40 is apparently seated. If this is true, is it significant? Could it be that the two forms represent different syllables of H?
     Furthermore, is hawaha  the original form of the root of Yahweh (He causes to be, or He is)? Allowing H40 to create the full tetragrammaton YHWH, are we then obliged to admit Gershon Galil’s ’TH (1 2 3) instead of ’T (“thou”), and ’RWR (“cursed”)?  What shall we then say about the LYHW’L (“Yahwe ’El”) in the third sentence? One thing is that it has only one H; and also it makes the line too long, as indicated by comparison with the other two (the translations should be ignored in this exercise). One detail to note is that Gershon has declared (7b) that the exterior inscription (“Outer A") is “very similar to” the interior text (‘Inner B”), or “the inner and outer texts are almost identical” (22b), except that ’L (“God”) is absent. Actually, the letters ’A9 and L8 for El, are among the ghost characters in the top sector, the other two being L10 and Y11, which produce “by Yhw “El” with H12 and W13. However, on the assumption that these four faint signs are meant to be omitted, I can employ H12 in the verb HT’R, “Be cursed”, as in line 1: 

 12 20 21 22   13 19 18  14 15 7 45 23 24 
 H    T      R     W M  T      R  R     R   R    
Be  cursed (ht’r) and (w) die (mt) accursed (’rr) ,
accursed one (’rr).

    With thirteen consonants it now has the same length as line 2, while line 1 has fourteen. The order I have chosen for the three curses seems logical: (1) the offender is addressed (not by name but by pronoun, atta, “Thou”), and the curse is placed on them in the name of Yahweh; (2) those under his curse are sentenced to death, and so you must die; (3) the curse is reaffirmed, and the offender is ordered to die.
     However,
I have two signs (47 48) left over, and also the extra Alep provided by Pieter (*49). I will propose that W47 is not a letter but a dividing line, separating the WTMT line (44 31 32 33) from the 45 46 48 ’RR; this prevents Gershon from incorporating the remote W44 into his reading of YHW (42 43 44), instead of W16, which is right next to the head of H42. I could quietly move on from here, hoping that you would not notice that “45 46 48 ’RR” does not appear in my solution; “45 23 24” is my combination at that point, but  this needs to be reconsidered. Gershon has six cases of “cursed” (’RWR) in his rendition of the text; my version, which is patently imperfect, has five instances of “cursed” (’RR without W) and two imperative verbs, “Be cursed” (HT’R), but I need to incorporate “45 46 48 ’RR”  into my scheme.
    This presentation of the data is tedious to the reader and taxing to my brain, but perhaps the solution will eventually emerge. Remember, only the person who wrote this inscription (that is, composed it, and possibly also engraved it) knew what its intended meaning is, and also the points where each sequence begins and ends.
    As we have seen, Gershon tentatively identified 48 letters, and divided them into three clusters, forming a chiasmus literary structure:
    (1) yellow (1-17), winding up the lefthand side on his drawing to El YHW at the top; my first line starts at the same point, but finds YHW and the cursing in the central part, where Gershon’s white cluster sits.
    You are cursed by the god YHW, cursed.
    (2) green (18-33), moving from top left (TMT, “you will die”), across to the righthand side and then down to another TMT,  passing MT along the way, taken to be an infinitive verb, strengthening the finite verb, hence MT TMT (“you will surely die”).
    You will die, cursed : cursed you will surely die.
    (3) white (34-48), beginning at the bottom and moving around the central part, incorporating the prominent YHW (Y42 H43 and a great leap sideways to grasp W44).
    Cursed you are by YHW, cursed.

   This certainly gives the gist of the text, but it is not exact, since it manages to construct six instances of ’RWR, two in each of the lines, when there are not enough instances of W to allow this, in my view.
(1) 4 5 6 7 & 14 15 16 17
(2) 21 22 23 24 & 25 26 27 28  
(3) 34 35 36 37 & 45 46 47 48
The consonant-sign W is presumed to be representing the vowel sound U in a word ’ârûr (“accursed”); but Gershon has produced the six cases of ’RWR by sleight of hand; he finds a first R to go with the initial ’Alep, then he reads an obvious R in the same sequence as W, and another R is commandeered from elsewhere to complete the quartet. An instructive example is observable in the top right area of Gershon’s drawing, with green numbering (*’RWR 25-28, in line 2): the ’Alep is a large ox-head with a long diagonal crossbar; next to it are two identical R-letters, but for consistency the second one is given the honorary role of W (=U); the next letter in line (28) is necessarily R, but it in no way resembles the previous R, which has a short stem with a “rhomboid” (or diamond-shaped) head on top, but it has a long downward stroke with a hand (side view of thumb and fingers) at the bottom, obviously a Yod, as the photograph shows (Table 8: 3A), contrary to the drawings of Gershon and Pieter. In this regard, it is surprising that Gershon has not noticed this, since he has recognized a similar form on the Qeiyafa Ostracon (line 2), and recreated two of them on the sherds of the Jerusalem Ophel Pithos to fill the gap before N, and to produce a word YYN (wine), though I would prefer the upright version found on the Ostracon (line 4) to offer YN. Here on the defixio this Yod could be linked to the M and T below it to make a finite verb, whereas Gershon has the MT as an infinitive emphasizing the following TMT, hence “you will surely die, cursed”.  On the other hand, my suggested reading is:
25 26 27  28 29 30  44 31 32 33   34 36 35
    R   R    Y  M  T     W  T  M  T         R   R    
"The accursed one (’rr) he puts to death (ymt), and (w) thou shalt die (tmt),
accursed one (’rr)".

Incidentally, Gershon’s interpretation begins with ’TH ’RWR, “Thou art cursed”; this phrase is attested in the Bible as ’RWR ’TH (Genesis 3:14. 4:11. Deuteronomy 28:16); and he begins his third sequence with ’RWR ’TH.

    Here now is my renewed attempt to unravel the tangle, while wondering whether the apparent chaos was intentional, making it difficult for anyone (except God) to decipher it, and pronounce an antidote or countermeasure to neutralize the curse:

1 2   3 39 38 37  41 40   42 43 16  4  5 6 
 T   H  T     R    L   H     Y  H  W      R  R    
Be thou (’t) cursed (ht’r) by (l) YHW himself (h),
accursed one (’rr).

25 26 27  28 29 30  44 31 32 33   34 36 35
    R   R    Y  M  T     W  T  M  T         R   R    
The accursed  (’rr) he puts to death (ymt),
and (w) thou shalt die (tmt),
accursed one (’rr).

 12 20 21 22   13 19 18  14 15 7 45 23 24 
 H    T      R     W M  T      R  R     R   R    
Be  cursed (ht’r) and (w) die (mt) accursed (’rr) ,
accursed one (’rr).



     Syllabification
   
All letters represent a variety of forms and stances” (7b-8a), we are told, and this raises the suspicion that we are in the presence of a syllabary, perhaps an early example of the Neo-syllabary.
   However, it is also said, regarding this variation: “The scribe who wrote the inscription used a stylus to form tiny letters on a small malleable surface. As a result the font is sometimes sloppy, with overlapping letters, and lacking in uniformity” (2a).
   The Taw has three variant forms of a cross, suggesting TU, TA, TI; thus YAMIT(I) (28 29 30) with diagonal M, as causative of mwt, “he puts to death”, is suitably different from  TAMUT(U) (31 32 33) with horizontal M, “you shall die”, and this accounts for the three forms of Taw; but when we look at YHW (42 43 16), fully expecting to confirm its original vowels (perhaps YAHIWI for Yahwe) the Yod for the anticipated YA is not the same as the one in YAMITI; the fingers of Y28 point leftwards, Y42 rightwards (with a shorter arm); possibly we should read YIMITI, instead of the normal yâ of Hip`il imperfect (3 p. m.); but if not, we are confronted by YIH(I)WI, and this is surprising; the unanswered question is whether *Yahweh is an archaic word meaning “He is”, or “He causes to be”, that is “He creates”. A disturbing detail is that the Yod of YHW on the outside has its fingers at the top of the sign!
   The ox-head (’Alep, still pictorial) and the human head (Rosh) are fairly consistent in all the cases of ’ARUR(U); but there is one oblique ’Alep (25), perhaps ’I, and a divergent R (<| 22), possibly RI.

    Classification
   According to my theory of the Quadrinity, there are four standard West Semitic scripts in the Bronze Age (with the Cuneoconsonantary, the cuneiform alphabetic and partly syllabic system, as an outlier).
   The writing on this leaden document  is certainly not (1) the Protosyllabary, the progenetrix of all the subsequent scripts; it exhibits none of the unique syllabograms of that system.
   It is probably not (2) the Protoconsonantary (the long Protoalphabet), even though its characters have surprisingly archaic forms; it is not classifiable as protoconsonantal, because it does not display any of the letters that were discarded in the short Protoalphabet, the Neoconsonantary.
    Consequently, it might be either (3) the Neoconsonantary or (4) the Neosyllabary, but, as we have seen, its
syllabic nature seems probable but problematic.
    Let me add that some of the characters in the books of the Bible were present when changes were made in the development of the Quadrinity (the fourfold "early alphabet", E=2M+2C squared), and they were well-educated scholars: Joseph and his two sons were in positions of authority in Egypt (a great seat of learning) when the West Semitic Protosyllabary was modified into the Proto-consonantary and started to be used in Egypt; Moses was (undeniably!) on the scene when Israel's proto-history and constitutional law were written down, presumably employing the Protoalphabet (the Protoconsonantary or the Neoconsonantary); but Moses may have decided to turn the consonantal proto-alphabet back into a syllabary, the Neosyllabary (so that he could show the vowels in the name YHW?!) and this is what Joshua used when the covenant was renewed at Shekem, and Joshua wrote the words in a "spr twrt 'lhym" (Joshua 24:25-26). This is speculation, but the four scripts of the Quadrinity were real, and their existence must now be acknowledged, as also those personages named in the Bible and attested outside the Scriptures (Moshe is still in hiding, though, but his foster-mother may have been Princess Hatshepsut, or her daughter!).

    Mystification
 
  Against whom was this multiple curse directed? It was discovered near the altar on Mount Ebal, and thus it might be concerned with any attempt to damage or destroy that sacred object; in this case the offence was sacrilege. A later example of desecration of an altar of Yahweh was by Antiokhos IV with his “abomination of desolation” on the burnt-offering altar in the temple of YHWH in Jerusalem, in the 2nd century BCE (1 Maccabees 1:54, 4:36-48).

   Reaction
   There are three types of reaction to an archaeological discovery that purports to be epigraphical:
   (1) MAXIMALISM (2) MINIMALISM (3) NIHILISM
    Maximalism has two subtypes: (a) seeing more characters than are actually present in the assumed inscription; (b) observing accurately what is written.
   The three editors of the first published edition of the tablet have (ostensibly) taken a maximalist stance; drawings of each of the assumed characters have been made, accompanied by individual photographs, and a composite line-drawing of the tomographically retrieved "Inner B" text. These results seem quite plausible to my mind, and over many months of detailed analysis I have endeavoured to extract coherent meaning from them, as recorded above


 
 
Immediately after its publication, and even before,
Christopher Rollston was cautiously pessimistic, but Brian Donnelly-Lewis  expressed hostility towards the piece of lead and its markings, as not being an inscription at all (a sad case of defeatism).
https://www.academia.edu/101971691/Final_Thoughts_on_the_Piece_of_Lead_from_Mt_Ebal_Supposed_to_be_an_Inscription
As someone who works heavily in the field of Iron age inscriptions, and especially with early inscriptions, I find the work to be exciting, full of boundless possibility, giving forth new data and new insights with each excavation year. Considering only the material from Lachish and its surroundings in recent years, our knowledge is growing, and our focus deserves to be elsewhere, solving the existing problems of epigraphy, improving readings, and designing new interpretations based on newer data. I’m sure every other epigrapher (and scholar) would agree with me here.”
   
   
Speaking for myself,  I have to say that this is an unsteady judgement, after the mess he has made (BASOR 388, 2022, 181-210) of the Qeiyafa ostracon and its "David and Goliath" inscription; he has not proved that he is capable of discerning letters in inscriptions, whether they are distinct or indistinct, and fails to recognize the different types of writing systems in "Early Alphabetic" documents; his "knowledge" has much "growing" to do.

More recently, in the midst of violent warfare in the Levant, denialists published peer-reviewed articles in the Israel Exploration Journal, and their opinions were reported in the local newspapers.    

JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH NOVEMBER 29, 2023. The Jerusalem Post
Experts question claims that there is  writing on the lead object from Mount Ebal, and their doubts about it cover some 21 pages in the Israel Exploration Journal.

Ariel David, New Studies Debunk Controversial Biblical ‘Curse Tablet’ From Mt. Ebal
Haaretz
Nov 30, 2023
The lead surface displays “random scratches, striations, pitting, and indentions,” which are consistent with the nature of lead and the processes or erosion and weathering the artifact may have undergone over the centuries, they add.
   Thus spake Ariel, the harshest and fiercest doom-prophet of them all. My restrained retort brands these “new studies” as merely “opinions”; and his word “debunk” implies sarcastic ridicule, but my reaction will be sincere satire, what I call “lampooning”, which means shining a bright light on their criticisms and highlighting their foibles and failings.
   Speaking  for myself (though my opinions are generally judged to be ingenuously ingenious, or vice versa) I think it would be the undeniable writing on the outside that was being damaged from that corrosion and erosion, and the interior text was comparatively free of that weathering, and therefore it should be examined first, if you don’t mind. Eventually, as with the Qumran Copper Scroll, a way may be found to release the interior text to our direct gaze, or we shall see that there is no writing at all, and it is just a blank page.
   Moreover, according to the theory of the three scholars who published the piece of lead, the recto (Outer A) has indentations (that is, impressions, in a technical sense) made with some form of metal stylus; the presumed and proven interior text (Inner B) lies directly under the outer text, and was likewise created by indentation; the verso does not have an inscription, but has bulges, which swell outwards, and they are indications of the indented letters inside the folded manuscript (unless they are simply the corresponding marks of the indentations on the other side, the recto). These are the details that the in-denial critics should have investigated in their “new studies”, with a view to falsification of the proposed hypothesis. Maybe they did, or else someone will apply for a research grant to painstakingly map and compare all the marks on both sides of the artefact, and then prise it open, since the ultimate outcome of archaeology is destruction.

   The academic critics who express sceptical misgivings about the existence of any writing on the object are (and I respect all three of them, and have had personal contact with them through electronic media):
Amihai Mazar, who has difficulty reading his own Rehob nscriptions, and who identifies the object as a lead fishing weight, and perhaps he is right, but his denial of writing on it may be wrong;
Aren Maeir, who disagrees with my interpretation of the Qeiyafa Ostracon, and whose initial attempt to read it himself was wide of the mark;
Christopher Rollston, who is unable to put the three pieces of the L-YRBB`L inscription together, and does not recognize its neo-syllabic script, and for whom every new inscription is a forgery or merely “putative” till he has authenticated it; in this regard he has published a useful article on NW Semitic forgeries;  but he is incapable of classifying West Semitic inscriptions into their correct categories.

Here is a more positive suggestion from the critics:

“Since any putative writing on the outside would not need to be tomographically reconstructed, but instead, could be read with the naked eye or the naked eye assisted by a stereo-microscope, we suggest it would have been methodologically useful for the authors to have first ascertained the morphology and ductus of the putative letters on the outside of this inscription, and then to have used that knowledge of the script’s morphology and ductus to assist in the more complex process of attempting to read any putative letters on the inside of the lead.”
   Fair enough! However, my mother used to say to me, “Choose the most difficult task first”.

   2nd December 2023. In response to this renewed onslaught, Pieter van der Veen pondered  solemnly (on Facebook):

“The 40 letters are Galil's claim. At the moment I would suggest that we have no more than 10 letters for the inside and even here most of them are not completely certain. I find much fault with Galil's extreme interpretation, and I always have. I unfortunately could not change much about it, although I was one of his fiercest critics from the start leading to a complete separation between us. I see a diagonal proto-alphabetic mem on the inside (upper right, upper left on Galil's questionable drawing of the inside inscription). This is perhaps the clearest letter, which I do not doubt for a minute. But there is also a taw with terminal hooks just like at Serabit el-Khadim. Unfortunately, it is not so clearly visible, except for on some scans. There is also an inverted yod and if you compared it with another upright yod on the inside and outside (!), then indeed we would be dealing with the same form. Then we have a stick-figure on the inside as well as on the outside, suggesting a possible proto-alphabetic he. This already suggests one or two words containing a mem and a taw (depending on which direction we are reading, this could perhaps read either tm or mt). In addition, we may have a yod and a he near each, either reading yh (from left to right) or hy (from right to left). We also have a diagonally oriented tail-like figure with a nearly square or oval head (this icon reappears on the in- and outside). Whether or not this icon is the letter waw, remains uncertain, but it does resemble waw as written in proto-alphabetic inscriptions. So, if read from left to right, we would have yhw. Which remains a possibility, but it will need further study. As for the inside inscription, everything else is much too speculative to go into here and even (except for mem!) none of the characters are certain, except that mem, "yod” and part of "he” (or whatever they might be) appear to be visible on the verso as dents. But as there are many more dents on the outside, this again is not certain.   
“As for the recto, we have the letter aleph in the lower left corner (this seems clear from the best available photographs), a mem (again a diagonal watery sign, just like the one we have on the inside) and a taw (although we have an extra dent, which makes the reading uncertain. We also have a stick-figure, but here it seems to be tumbling backwards, so that it may be something else than a he (this was also our initial interpretation before the Czech people sent us the better images). But all this needs more study. The upright yod is again relatively obvious. If we abstain from a speculative interpretation, it is noteworthy that we do seem to have similar characters as on the inside (mem, taw, he and possibly a waw), which is striking, at least this is my personal opinion. Inside these characters on the recto we appear to have incisions, which seem to be tooling marks. Some of the characters have raised edges, just like on other lead inscriptions, where the lead has been pushed to the side by a sharp implement or styles. To ignore all this, would simply not be right and therefore all this deserves further study".

   In reply to all their dubiety and negativity, I propose the power of positive putation. Their word “putative” is not in my private vocabulary, but as an erstwhile Latin scholar I can associate it in my mind with puto, which means “I think”, I think (not puteo, “I stink”), and I ponder why we do not say puto ergo sum, or the more pungent puteo ergo sum, instead of always cogitating;  so then, putative writing is “thought-to-be writing”. Similarly, I presumed that Latin putatio would signify “thinking”, but I thought wrong. The primary meaning of puto is “prune”, and my neoverbum (or neologism) putation would denote only “pruning”. So, I put on my severest “prune” face, and apply the secateurs for some drastic amputation, in order to promote the growth of the defoliated leaden tabletette as a genuine defixio, and its curse be on anyone who seeks to deflower it. Being a very cautious person, I am not inclined to engage in such a parlous parlay, which bespeaks doom.
   First of all, we suddenly find ourselves facing up to a tiny leaden “sinker” (I have known that word since my boyhood fishing failures and their sinking feelings); it is not a document at all. I might have applied the term “sinker” to that suggestion, but it could well be a correct answer, though my lead sinker was rounded, not flattened. The mocker will retort that this was no place for piscatorial practices, on top of a barren mountain, far from the Great Green Sea, and quite distant from that inland sea in Galilee, where Shimon Kepha (alias Petros) and his merry band of “fishers of men” would labour with their nets all night; and even if the sky sometimes rained schools of fish (as in the epic of Gilgamesh, and in whirlwinds), buckets and baskets were of rigour as rigging, not nets, hooks, lines, and sinkers. Swinging the lead refers to making up excuses, and in the present circumstances there is no excuse for denying the possibility that the priestly scribe saw in a fishing implement the ideal vehicle for conveying an imprecation. The crease mark on it might be where a cord was tightened around it, and this permitted it to be strung on one of the stones of the altar, I ween. My mistake! Now they can hypothesize that all the indentation marks on the soft metal of the sinker were made in collisions with the altar’s sharp (“unhewn”) rocks, as it swayed in the breeze; but that makes it into a mechanical distractor to shoo flies away from the animal sacrifices (after the Deluge the Mesopotamian gods swarmed like flies over the sacrifices, we are told).
    Next, after all the nihilistic haggling over presumptions and putative thinking, Pieter has apparently started to lower his bargaining price, so to speak; but even if the outside text (the Recto, Outer A) only has a dozen signs (a defeatist position), this does not mean that the concealed Inner B curse can not have three dozen miniature characters, though in cases of sealed clay envelopes, the message on the outside was the same as the one on the inside. For that reason, I would argue that in this case, the Outer A inscription has the same message as the Inner B, comprising three imprecatory sentences with a logical sequence.
    On the outer recto I see in the centre (viewing the tablet with Pieter’s large Alep in the bottom left corner) the same LYHW as in the interior text. The other signs in the interior are attested by the revealing rays, and the seven tables of recognizable images of letters, which were approved by Scott, Pieter, and Gershon at the point of publication, have been examined by myself over a long period, and I have identified them with the numbering provided on Gershon’s Table 1 and on his annotated drawing, and written the numbers at the appropriate positions on the tables of ’a H W Y L R M T, by which words from the roots ‘RR (curse) and MWT (die), and the name YHW, are represented in writing.
    The skeptical reaction to this published work is an unmerited insult to the professional integrity of the technical team who made these extraordinary discoveries, and an insolent snub to the marvelous skill of the ancient scribe who engraved the leaden tablet.
    Is the object too small (2 cm x 2 cm) to be a tablet? The little lice comb is 2.5 x 3.5 cm, and its scribe found room for  two dozen neosyllabic letters, with space remaining for more.
   
    The marks made on the leaden tablet by the putative inscriber, were intentional, but necessarily miniscule and imperfect; he was probably myopic and could read fine print. Although its curse was directed against a sinner, it was not written for that “accursed one” to read; its main purpose was to establish that YHW God would bring the imprecation into operation against the offender.

   Prospect       
   Where do we go from here? I have just counted (roughly) the number of marks on the exterior of the tablet, and there are dozens of them, including two large instances of the Halleluyah figure, one above the other (top half, centre), as detected tomographically in the interior; and according to the sketches of Gershon and Pieter, there should be two smaller examples (lower half); and my old brain (which started analysing the world in 1936) can construct a concomitant pair of them on its mental slate. Gershon Galil claims to have perceived all the signs on the outside as well as on the inside, and they are almost entirely the same. Yet Pieter wants to backtrack their train, which has already delivered a full load of valuable goods, pushing the bulk of them back into the wagon to be carted away to the nearest dump. He is accepting the distinct letters, and jettisoning the indistinct ones.
   Therefore, the advice given by Christopher Rollston should be heeded: a committee should be given access to the artefact, to examine its exterior microscopically. Today (12/12/2023) I bought yet another book that describes the amazing intelligence of octopuses, who solve puzzles by feeling things with their tentacles; this team should include a blind human (as in “sightless in Gaza”, to make a topical allusion), someone who is not afraid of lead poisoning, and who will touch and feel the marks, and actually read them. Volunteers?
   Be warned, ye who are messing about with your archaeological digging around the Ebal altar, though there are indications that it was desacralized in antiquity, covered over.
Remember not to put your hand on the Ark of the Covenant or on the Altar of Consecration, but handling the curse tablet is surely permissible and necessary for our serious research.

    The case is already provisionally proven: this tablet is a defixio (a “cursary”) for cursing an offender and for enacting a death penalty administered by Yahweh, for a sin of desecration.
    However, consider now the thoughts of Mori Michael Bar-Ron on the purpose of the controversial curse inscription from Mount Ebal
See his "Ebal Curse Tablet" at:
    I have suggested that the document is indeed a "defixio", imposing a curse (or six) on an offender, and in this case anyone who has desecrated the altar that has been discovered on Mount Ebal, the mountain of cursing.
    Michael connects it with "the sotah [Sin Tet He, "going astray"] ceremony", "the 'ordeal of the bitter water' by which a woman suspected of adultery is to be tried, per the Book of Numbers, Chapter Five."  The priest would dip this "tablet" in a cup of water (like a tea bag) and this drink would cause lead poisoning and induce an abortion.
    I will not try to refute his very good argument, but simply say:
The instructions to the priest include the addition of "dust from the floor of the Tabernacle". Was the Mishkan, the movable temple, ever on Mount Ebal?
    Michael accepts that the leaden tablet includes TMT, which could be "she shall die", or "thou shalt die" (which I prefer, as the text seems to start with 'T, "thou"). There is no mention of death in the Torah instructions, only public shaming, though if the adultery commandment was involved, then "stoning to death" would follow the ordeal, if the woman was found to be guilty.
    No one but myself has considered the possibility that the script on the tablet is syllabic, specifically the Neosyllabary (in my terminology) which prevailed in Israel in the time of the Judges. This would allow us to decide what the vowels of the TMT sequence are (I suggest ta-mu-tu, but there are too many variables, such as unclear letters, and not enough words in the text).


     I should have warned prospective readers of this lengthy essay that it is not an easy ride or read; and it is not written with a broken reed, but with an adamant pen and caustic ink; the metaphors could be tedious, too.
    Criticisms against the work of persons named herein come with regret and respect. They are my "learnèd friends" in this court of judgement, and my esteemed colleagues in this school of "palaiogrammatology", as I have dubbed it; we are fellow-labourers in this garden of delights, as we dig up treasured messages from people of the past. However, I feel like Cassandra weeping over the folly of the citizens of Ilias, as they erringly venerate their treacherous Trojan horse; in our setting there is a parlous paradigm that could cause our downfall. Instead of weeping and wailing like Cassandra, and sinking into deep depression, I have chosen to play the part of Hamlet's "poor Yorick ... a fellow of infinite jest", before my skull (created in 1936) becomes bereft of brains. as his was after exhumation. Kindly picture my rollicking caricatures as satirical cartoons without drawings.
   
In truth, there is many a true word spoken in earnest. The bruised and broken inscriptions that have come to light are portents from the prophets and preachers of antiquity, to warn this perverse generation of ours that the retribution for our pollution of planet Earth is now upon us, in the form of fire and flood. Recently I saw a rainbow in the sky of Aotearoa New Zealand, said to be a reminder of a divine covenant (Genesis 9:11-17) promising no more deluges to destroy life on the land; but the earthlings who have followed Prometheus and worshiped the unclean spirit, the Lord of Fossil Fuels, whose names are legion (King Coal, Prince Petroleum, Ignition, Incendiary, Combustion,  Conflagration) have nullified that compact. There is a passage in Christian Scripture, where the Flood is recalled, and destruction by fervent heat and fire is foreshadowed; I have never heard it read aloud in church, but it is written (2 Peter 3:1-13).
    
    The origin of the alphabet must not be our chief concern, when the world is being consumed by wildfires, and engulfed in floods, largely caused by human pollution of air, land and sea, and constantly fueled by widespread warfare. Civil civilization on a peaceful planet must prevail.