Writing and Printing

Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon

The Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon is a 15-by-16.5-centimetre (5.9 in × 6.5 in) ostracon (a trapezoid-shaped potsherd) with five lines of text, discovered in Building II, Room B, in Area B of the excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa in 2008 headed by Yosef Garfinkel and Michael G. Hasel. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said the inscription was the longest Proto-Canaanite text ever found. Carbon-14 dating of 4 olive pips found in the same context with the ostracon and pottery analysis offer a date of Iron Age IIA c. 3,000 years ago (late 11th/early 10th century BCE). In 2010, the ostracon was placed on display in the Iron Age gallery of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

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See also

• ▸Dacians
• ▸History of the Kurds
• ▸Kwatha dialect

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