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TODD BOLEN/BIBLEPLACES.COM

LAYERED LANGUAGE. Scholars have long assumed the first Philistines spoke a form of early Greek, but what little we know of their language suggests they actually used several Aegean and Anatolian languages, including Mycenean Greek and Luwian, one of the languages of the Hittites. During the course of the Iron Age, however, these languages gradually blended with local Canaanite dialects to become a Northwest Semitic language that was nearly identical to Hebrew, Moabite, and Phoenician, as attested by this seventh-century BCE inscription from the Philistine city of Ekron. The inscription commemorates the building of a temple to a local goddess and proclaims blessings on the builder and his land.