Image Details

DANIEL VAVRIK; FROM STRIPLING ET AL., “‘YOU ARE CURSED BY THE GOD YHW’: AN EARLY HEBREW INSCRIPTION FROM MT. EBAL,” HERITAGE SCIENCE 11:105 (2023) / CC BY 4.0

MYSTERIOUS METAL. A diminutive lead object, measuring about an inch on each side, was discovered in 2019 during the sifting of earlier excavation dumps from the site of Mt. Ebal in the West Bank. Shortly thereafter, a group of scholars asserted this lead “tablet” contained a Hebrew inscription from the end of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1400–1200 BCE). Other scholars, however, remain highly skeptical. The image shown here is a digital scan of the interior of the lead object.