| DESCRIPTION | |
|---|---|
| Language: | Hebrew |
| Medium: | limestone |
| Size: | 11.1 centimeters long 7.2 centimeters wide |
| Length: | 7 lines of writing + margin signature |
| Genre: | Student Exercise? |
| Approximate Date: | 925 BCE |
| Place of Discovery: | Tell el-Jazari ancient Gezer (30km NW of Jerusalem) |
| Date of Discovery: | 1908 |
| Current Location: | Syria/Palestine Collection Archaeological Museum Istanbul, Turkey |
| TRANSLITERATION (Adapted from Gibson 1973:2) |
TRANSLATION
by K. C. Hanson (Adapted from Albright 1969:320) |
INTERPRETATION |
YRHW 'SP YRHW Z Rc YRHW LQŠ YRH cSD PŠT YRH QSR ŠcRM YRH QSR WKL YRHW ZMR YRH QS 'BYH |
Two months are harvest Two months are planting Two months are late (planting) One month is hoeing flax One month is barley-harvest One month is harvest and feasting Two months are (vine-)pruning One month is summer fruit Abijah |
August–September October–November December–January February March April May–June July the scribe's name |
| DISCUSSION QUESTIONS |
|
1. What functions might this inscription have served? 2. What does this inscription tell us about the agricultural year in Palestine? See Borowski 1987, 1992; Talmon 1963. 3. What does this inscription tell us about peasant crops? What is the importance of crop diversity and crop rotation for peasant farming? 4. How did the major festivals of ancient Israel relate to this seasonal pattern? See Vanderkam 1992. 5. What is the average rainfall in Palestine? How does this relate to the crop cycle? See Frick 1990, 1992a, 1992b. |
| SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY |
|
Albright, W. F. "The Gezer Calendar." Bulletin of the American
Schools of Oriental Research 82 (1943):18-24. Albright, W. F. "Palestinian Inscriptions." In Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 320-22. 3rd ed. Ed. J. B. Pritchard. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969. Borowski, Oded. "Agriculture." In Anchor Bible Dictionary 1:95-98. Ed. D. N. Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Borowski, Oded. Agriculture in Iron Age Israel. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1987. Cassuto, Umberto. "The Gezer Calendar and its Historical-Religious Value." In idem, Biblical and Oriental Studies. Vol. 2: Bible and Ancient Oriental Texts, 211-28. Trans. I. Abrahams. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1975. Frick, Frank S. "Ecology, Agriculture and Patterns of Settlement." In The World of Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives, 67-93. Ed. R. E. Clements. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989. Frick, Frank S. "Palestine, Climate of." In Anchor Bible Dictionary 5:119-26. Ed. D. N. Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Frick, Frank S. "Rain." In Anchor Bible Dictionary 5:612. Ed. D. N. Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992. de Geus, C. H. J. "The Importance of Agricultural Terraces, with an excursus on the Hebrew word gbî." Palestine Exploration Quarterly 107 (1975):65-74. Gibson, John C. L. Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions, vol. 1. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1973. Hopkins, David. "The Dynamics of Agriculture in Monarchical Israel." In SBL Seminar Papers, 1983, 177-202. Hopkins, David C. The Highlands of Canaan: Agricultural Life in the Early Iron Age. Social World of Biblical Antiquity 3. Sheffield: Almond, 1985. Hopkins, David. "Life on the Land: The Subsistence Struggles of Early Israel." Biblical Archaeologist 50 (1987):178-91. Rahtjen, B. D. "A Note Concerning the Form of the Gezer Tablet." Palestine Exploration Quarterly 93 (1961):70-72. Smelik, Klaas A. D. Writings From Ancient Israel: A Handbook of Historical and Religious Documents. Trans. G. I. Davies. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1991. Stager, Lawrence E. "The First Fruits of Civilization." In Palestine in the Bronze and Iron Ages: Papers in Honour of Olga Tufnell, 172-88. Ed. J. N. Tubb. London: Institute of Archaeology, 1985. Talmon, Shemaryahu. "The Gezer Calendar and the Seasonal Cycle of Ancient Canaan." Journal of the American Oriental Society 83 (1963):177-87. Tropper, J. "Nominativ Dual yarihau im Gezer-Kalender." Zeitschrift für Althebräistik 6 (1993):228-31. Turkowski, L. "Peasant Agriculture in the Judean Hills." Palestine Exploration Quarterly 101 (1969):101-12. Vanderkam, James C. "Calendars, Ancient Israelite and Early Jewish." In Anchor Bible Dictionary 1:814-20. Ed. D. N. Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Young, I. "The Style of the Gezer Calendar and Some 'Archaic Biblical Hebrew' Passages." Vetus Testamentum 42 (1992):362-75. |
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