Footnotes

1.

A wadi is a very dry river bed which flows only one or two days each winter when it rains. Then the water flows with furious and dangerous intensity.

2.

Numbers in parentheses refer to the plan above.

3.

The w which precedes the final word and two other words in the full transcription of the inscription is the particle which is translated “and.”

4.

An abecedary is an alphabet.

5.

The Samaria Ostraca are a collection of inscribed sherds found in excavations at Samaria, capital of the northern kingdom. The ostraca were commercial documents from about 800 B.C.