When this tiny bone plaque was discovered at Tel ‘Aroer in 1980, excavator Avraham Biran postulated that it might be a seventh-century B.C.E. calendar or possibly a board game.a Continuing study of this and other similar plaques from southern Canaan, however, strongly supports its identification as a calendar.1
The 2.4-by-1-inch rectangle is divided into four columns of holes—12 on the far left and ten in each of the other three—and topped by a proto-Aeolic capital motif punctured by three additional holes. As Biran noted in his BAR article, the left column could be used to count the 12 months of the year while the other columns marked 30 days in each month. Small pegs, possibly of different colors, could be placed in the holes to track the current date or other important dates.
The three holes at the top remain something of a mystery. Suggestions for their function include simply for hanging the plaque, or to mark a three-year calendar cycle with a short 13th “leap” month at the end of every third year, or perhaps to track the three annual agricultural seasons known from the Egyptian calendar, based on the inundation of the Nile. Although the Negev site of Tel ‘Aroer would not have been affected by the Nile’s flooding, the user may have used an Egyptian calendar for administrative purposes.
The proto-Aeolic capital at the top of the plaque, which is well known from royal and administrative buildings of the time, suggests Phoenician influence and perhaps the official status of the calendar’s owner. According to Nili Fox of Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, who authored the chapter about the calendar in the recent Tel ‘Aroer final exavation report, “It seems that this tiny calendar could in fact have been used to schedule and track official business, mark special days and the like, perhaps by the person of status residing in the pillared structure in which it was found.”
A. baking tray
B. board game
C. cheese grater
D. archery target
E. calendar
072 Answer: (E) calendar
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Lawrence E. Stager, “Chariot Fittings from Philistine Ashkelon,” in Seymour Gitin, J. Edward Wright and J.P. Dessel, eds, Confronting the Past: Archaeological and Historical Essays on Ancient Israel in Honor of William G. Dever (Winona Lake, IN:Eisenbrauns, 2006), pp. 169–176. See also Trude Dothan and Alexandra S. Drenka, “Linchpins Revisited,” in J. David Schloen, ed., Exploring the Longue Durée: Essays in Honor of Lawrence E. Stager (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009), pp. 97–101.