[Jlabsa_gs] Pizza Seminar - Wednesday, July 18, 2018 - A Message From Lorelei Carlson
Jodi Patient
patient at jlab.org
Tue Jul 17 11:48:46 EDT 2018
Jefferson Lab's Graduate Student and Post-Doc Association Wiki:
https://gspda.jlab.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Please RSVP to: patient at jlab.org by 3:00 today
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
***F113***
12:00-1:00 pm
"THE WRITING ARMY OF JUDAH: Imaging and Analysis of
Hebrew First Temple (Iron Age II) Ostraca
Eliazer Piasetzky
School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Abstract:
An ostracon is a piece of pottery or stone that contains writing. We have been
studying ostraca written in the ancient Hebrew alphabet from the first Temple
era (Iron Age II).
We performed an algorithmic handwriting analysis of 16 ostraca unearthed at an
excavation in the far-flung desert fort of Arad, and deduced that the texts had
been written by at least six authors. The content of the inscriptions disclosed
that reading and writing abilities had existed throughout the Judah military
chain of command, from the highest echelon all the way down to the deputy
quartermaster of the fort.
Considering the remoteness of Arad, the small garrison stationed there, and the
narrowly constrained period of the inscriptions, this finding indicates a high
literacy rate within Judah’s administrative apparatus – and provides a suitable
background for the composition of a critical mass of biblical texts.
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