The Tell es-Safi inscription was found in 2005 at the archaeological site at

Tell es-Safi Tell es-Safi ( ar, تل الصافي, Tall aṣ-Ṣāfī, "White hill"; he, תל צפית, ''Tel Tzafit'') was an Arab Palestinian village, located on the southern banks of Wadi 'Ajjur, northwest of Hebron which had its Arab population expelled ...

, identified with the biblical city of Gath. It was under the destruction layer at the beginning of

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

IIA (1000–925 BCE). Seven letters, interpreted as two words, are written on the piece of pottery: ''‘LWT'' (אלות) and ''WLT'' (ולת). This was initially suggested to be similar to what would have been the name of

Goliath Goliath ( ) ''Goləyāṯ''; ar, جُليات ''Ǧulyāt'' (Christian term) or (Quranic term). is a character in the Book of Samuel, described as a Philistine giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''gigas'', cognate giga-) a ...

(גלית, ''GLYT''), the Biblical character from Gath. Written in

Proto-Canaanite Proto-Canaanite is the name given to :(a) the Proto-Sinaitic script when found in Canaan, dating to about the 17th century BC and later. :(b) a hypothetical ancestor of the Phoenician script before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BCE, with an u ...

, it is the “earliest known alphabetic inscription from an Iron Age Philistine site in a well defined context”.

Bibliography

The Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project
* Maeir, A.M., Wimmer, S.J., Zukerman, A. et Demsky, A. 2008
A Late Iron Age I/Early Iron Age II Old Canaanite Inscription from Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel: Palaeography, Dating, and Historical-Cultural Significance
''Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research'', 351, 39-71. 2005 archaeological discoveries Philistine inscriptions Archaeological discoveries in Israel Gath (city)