The article presents a 12th-century b.c. alphabetic inscription unearthed at Lachish, Israel, during the 2014 excavation season.

This paper presents two brief alphabetic inscriptions from Area D in the lower city of Tell es ̣-S ̣âfi/ Gath, both deriving from Iron Age IIA contexts. The first is written in an Early Alphabetic script similar to an inscription previously published from the site (Maeir et al. 2008) and is interpreted as being related to the storage of wine. The second, written in later, "formalized" alphabetic script, is quite fragmentary and difficult to decipher, for which several possible interpretations are suggested. These two new inscriptions join the relatively large number of alphabetic inscriptions from Tell es ̣-S ̣âfi/Gath, second only in number to contemporaneous Tel Rehov, and provide additional evidence to the outstanding role of the site during the early Iron Age.

Two adjoining fragments of a storage jar bearing an archaic alphabetic inscription were found during the renewed excavations at Tel Beth-Shemesh. Analysis indicates that, though found in separate contexts, the two sherds derived from a common source of predominately late Bronze ii and early iron i materials. A date of 1150–1100 BCe for the provenance of the inscription is most likely. The inscription consists of six or seven alphabetic signs incised on the jar before firing. Though only the word or name element b>l is unequivocally recognizable, the original inscription seems to have included a statement of ownership and an indication of the contents of the vessel. A paleographical analysis of the letter signs shows the writing to be characteristic of the mid-12th century BCe or slightly earlier and a date of ca. 1150 BCe, in accordance with its archaeological context, is entirely plausible. The use of the divine name Ba>l may hint at the cultural background of the iron Age i population of Beth-Shemesh. Two adjoining potsherds bearing a single archaic alphabetic inscription were found in 2001 during the 11th excavation season at Tel Beth-Shemesh (Fig. 1). The two sherds were recovered separately from different depositional layers of the same stratigraphical context (Level 4) within the same excavation square (T47) in Area E on the southern part of the mound (for map and comprehensive summary of the renewed excavations at the site, see Bunimovitz and Lederman 2009). The smaller sherd is trapezoidal in shape and bears two complete letter signs and a fragment of a third; the larger sherd is rectangular and bears four complete signs (Table 1). The join between the two sherds was recognized by the excavators during artefact analysis after the conclusion of the 2001 season. Thus the entire extant inscription, which is presumably incomplete, consists of seven letter signs—six complete and one fragmentary. The signs had been incised on the body of a

Only four Proto-Sinaitic alphabetic inscriptions, all on small portable objects, were found in the temple precinct in Serabit el-Khadem, all by the shrine of Hathor. Most of the other (around 30) Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions are rock graffiti found inside and around the mines. In the first part of the article, I present the four finds bearing the alphabetic inscriptions, offering a detailed palaeographic analysis of each inscription. The second part of the article considers the objects themselves, their forms, and their possible cultural role in the world of their users.

A new West Semitic inscription from Khirbet Qeiyafa is presented. It was incised in Canaanite alphabetic script on a pottery storage jar before firing. Radiometric dating of the relevant layer has yielded a date of ca. 1020–980 b.c.e. The last few years have seen the publication of several new Semitic alphabetic inscriptions dated to the late 11th–10th centuries b.c.e. and originating at controlled excavations in Israel. The new inscription is an important addition to this corpus.