Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient fortified city overlooking the Elah Valley. The ruins of the fort were discovered in 2007, 30 kilometers west of Jerusalem. Some archaeologists believe it is the biblical city of Shaarayim, but this is unproven. Based on the styles of pottery found at the site and two burnt olive pits carbon-14 tested, archaeologists have dated the site to between 1050 and 915 BCE, more than three thousand years ago. In publishing preliminary reports from excavations conducted in 2010 and 2011, the Israel Antiquities Authority stated: «The excavations at Khirbat Qeiyafa clearly reveal an urban society that existed in Judah at the end of the 11th century BCE.

At the site, in addition to the ruins of walls and fortifications, many pieces of pottery were found. Equipment for baking unleavened bread and hundreds of bones from goats, cattle, sheep, and fish were also found. Significantly, no pig bones were discovered, suggesting that the city was neither Philistine nor Canaanite, but rather Hebrew.

Among the pottery fragments was an «ostracon,» a broken piece of pottery, usually a piece of a vase or other clay vessel, scratched with an inscription. It was common at that time for people to use pieces of broken pottery to write text, scratching it on the surface of the pebble. This was an easy and inexpensive way to write a note.

This particular ostracon, measuring 15 by 16.5 centimeters, contains five lines of text. Archaeologist Gershon Galil of the University of Haifa proposes the following interpretation of the text: “You shall not do this, but worship God [El]. Judge the slave and the widow, judge the orphan and the stranger. Plead for the infant, plead for the poor and the widow. Rehabilitate the poor at the hands of the king. Protect the poor and the slave, support the stranger.” According to experts, the text used words and verbs characteristic of Hebrew, more than other languages ​​of the region.

Amos Oz says: “Written in Hebrew more than three thousand years ago, this pebble is inscribed with a moral and legal imperative born of a culture demanding justice for the weak and the needy. At the heart of the matter is the slave, the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the infant, and the poor.” A meticulous inventory that includes all the oppressed figures in ancient society. They managed to squeeze it into this tiny fragment, about six inches across, for us to discover especially now in our time. Perhaps to show us that a social protest arose in that place three millennia ago. More than three thousand years ago, there was a culture that saw fit to demand respect to the weak from the strong.”

In 2010, the ostracon was put on permanent display in the Iron Age gallery of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Amos Oz asks, “What is the heart of Judaism for me?” He answers, “What is written on that small pebble.”

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Amos Oz “Shalom lakanaim,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, and other sources.