In the 10th century B.C., in the hill country south of Jerusalem, a scribe carved his A B C's on a limestone boulder - actually, his aleph-beth-gimel's, for the string of letters appears to be an early rendering of the emergent Hebrew alphabet.
Archaeologists digging in July at the site, Tel Zayit, found the inscribed stone in the wall of an ancient building. After an analysis of the layers of ruins, the discoverers concluded that this was the earliest known specimen of the Hebrew alphabet and an important benchmark in the history of writing, they said this week.
If they are right, the stone bears the oldest reliably dated example of an abecedary - the letters of the alphabet written out in their traditional sequence. Several scholars who have examined the inscription tend to support that view.
Experts in ancient writing said the find showed that at this stage the Hebrew alphabet was still in transition from its Phoenician roots, but recognizably Hebrew. The Phoenicians lived on the coast north of Israel, in today's Lebanon, and are considered the originators of alphabetic writing, several centuries earlier.
The discovery was made by Dr. Ron Tappy, an archaeologist from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (where Fred Rogers of "Mister Rogers Neighborhood" studied for the ministry and was ordained).
Dr Tapy says that a border town of such size and culture, suggests a centralized bureaucracy, with the political leadership and literacy levels that seemed to support the biblical image of the unified kingdom of David and Solomon in the 10th century B.C.
This is contrary to the view that the Bible's picture of the 10th century B.C. as a golden age in Israelite history is insupportable. They suggest that David and Solomon were little more than tribal chieftains and that it was another century before a true political state emerged.
Dr. Tappy acknowledges that he is inviting controversy by his interpretation of the Tel Zayit stone and other artifacts as evidence of a fairly advanced political system 3,000 years ago.
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