The calendar from Geser is a limestone tablet (11.1x7.2 cm), found in 1908 by Robert Makalister during excavations of Tel Geser . The find was transferred to the Turkish Archaeological Museum in Istanbul , where it is located to this day. One of the oldest monuments of Paleo-Jewish writing , dates from the X century BC. er
Content
Description
The artifact was preserved quite well, given its venerable age. The text is recorded so-called. paleo-Jewish alphabet close to the Phoenician . The lettering is very archaic and extremely uneven. In most other inscriptions, letters are depicted much more accurately. There are no word dividers in the text, but a vertical line (|) is found twice, which most likely separates sentences than resembles the “Sof Pasuk” sign in the Tanakh text. In a similar way, it is used in the stele of the Moabite king Mesha (9th century BC). In the calendar, this trait is used only in cases where the end of the sentence does not coincide with the end of the line. Most letters are clearly preserved. The first letter iodine (י) in the first line partially suffered, but from the general context it can be unambiguously restored in comparison with the rest. In the third line, the letter tav (ת) gravitates to the archaic form “+” despite the fact that later inscriptions contain the variant “x”. The letter meme (ם) in the 4th line was between the 4th and 5th lines. This letter also has its own peculiarity of the style: its wavy part is depicted vertically, although in later inscriptions it gradually tilts to the left. Tav and meme resemble letters in the inscription on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram . The letter hat (ח) in the 5th row of the calendar turned out to be for some reason rotated counterclockwise by 70-80 degrees, but the meaning of the inscription does not change from this.
Transliteration and Translation
| Page | Transliteration | Transfer |
|---|---|---|
| one | ירחו אסף | ירחו ז | Two months of harvest ( harvest ). Two months |
| 2 | רע | ירחו לקש | sowing. Two months of "late harvest." |
| 3 | ירח עצד פשת | Flax harvesting month. |
| four | ירח קצר שערם | Barley harvest month . |
| five | ירח קצר וכל | Harvest and feast month. |
| 6 | ירחו זמר | Two months of pruning ( vines ). |
| 7 | ירח קץ | A month of summer fruit. |
| eight | אבי | Avius [a] |
The calendar tells about agricultural activities that take place in one-month and two-month periods. Some scholars suggest that this is a student’s spelling exercise. There is every reason to believe that literacy was widespread in Israel during the time of the Judges (Judges 8:14). Other experts believe that a popular folk or children's song is recorded here. There is also an opinion that the document relates in some way to the collection of taxes from farmers.
Text Analysis
The following table provides an analysis of each sentence from the inscription. In the left column, sentences are written in the modern Hebrew alphabet with vowels . This is the intended reading of the tablet text, borrowed from the Hebrew version of the article. In the right column, each proposal is given a detailed description.
| Etc. | Transcription | Offer Description |
|---|---|---|
| one | Yar ḥaw 'asp | Two months of harvest (harvest). August and September. The main problem of this and the following sentences is the word ירחו . We are well aware of the word יֶרַח (month) from Tanakh (Ex. 2: 2, etc.). In the form (w) arhu, it already appears in the Akkadian language and goes back to the Prasemite root wrh . The question is what does the letter vav (ו) mean at the end of the word. The meaning of the whole text as a whole unequivocally indicates to us that the word ירחו should contain the meaning of “two months”. In this case, the description will correspond to real months, and the total number of months mentioned in the text is exactly 12. There is indeed a dual number in the Hebrew language, but according to the Masoretic grammar it is expressed in absolute form by the ending “- имййм ” (eg two hands - yadayim יָדַיִם ), and in conjugated form - “- hey ” ( yedéy יְדֵי ), that is, it does not differ from the conjugated plural form. The ending “ ayim ” or “ hey ” cannot be written in any way by the letter vav (ו). According to traditional grammar, ירחו should have translated “his month”, but this does not fit the context well and contradicts the well-known spelling rules of the 10th century. BC er What does the literal vav (ו) in the word ירחו convey ? After this table, various theories are examined in sufficient detail. |
| 2 | Yar ḥaw zar ' | Two months of sowing. October and November. Everything here is quite clear, with the exception of ירחו , described above. |
| 3 | Yar ḥaw laqš | Two months of "late harvest." December and January. Otherwise, the word לֶקֶשׁ can be translated "spring" or "second mowing." This is a very rare word in the Old Testament . It is found only in verse Am. 7: 1. Its root carries the meaning of "late." |
| four | Yarḥ 'aṣd pišt | Flax harvesting month. This is February. The word עֲצַד is not found in the Old Testament , but in other Semitic languages (for example, Old Akkadian, Ethiopian ) this root has the meaning of “harvest (harvest)”. In Tanach, only twice (Isa. 44:12 and Jer. 10: 3) there is a single-root מַעֲצָד , which translates as “ ax ” or “ ax ”. O. M. Steinberg in his etymological dictionary gives the word עָצַד the meaning “cut, chop,” from which מַעֲצָד is derived . From ancient times people used flax to obtain fibers from stems and oil from seeds. The word פֵּשֶׁת in the Old Testament means a flaxen flax , usually in the plural ( פִּשְׁתִּים ), and the collective term פִּשְׁתָּה (Ex. 9:31) refers to a flax plant. The text of the tablet most likely refers to flax, which is still on the field, that is, the second word is used, but the letter һэ (ה) is not written at the end, because it plays the role of the reading mother . |
| five | Yarḥ qǎ ṣir śǎ'u rīm | Barley harvest month. March. The word קָצִיר in Tanakh is usually written with the letter iodine (י) in the penultimate position as the mother of reading , but the use of mothers of reading in the middle of the word is not noted in the tablet from Gezer. The letters vav (ו) and iodine (י) in the role of a lecture mattress in the middle of words begin to be widely used only after the Babylonian exile . Barley is widely used in the Middle East , as it ripens faster than wheat , and better tolerates heat and drought. Food is made from grain, and the stems go to feed livestock. The concept of barley in the Old Testament is usually found in the plural שְׂעֹרִים . Steinberg translates this word “barley grains”, while the plant barley according to Steinberg will be שְׂעֹרָה . The book of Ruth 1:22 just speaks of the beginning of the harvest of barley, where we read the expression קְצִיר שְׂעֹרִים , similar to the text in the Calendar. Here the word barley is also spelled in the plural, but without mother reading iodine (י) before the final meme (ם). This ancient spelling tradition is only partially preserved in the text of the Tanakh , e.g. in Gen. 3: 7. |
| 6 | Yarḥ qǎ ṣir wǎkal li | Harvest and feast month. The month of April. In this sentence, questions arise around the word כל. Some experts translate it as a "feast" or "celebration." Others believe that this is about measurement. |
| 7 | Yar ḥaw za mir | Two months of pruning (vines). May and June. The verb "zamar" is characterized by the meaning "cut off (vine)" only in an agricultural context. See Lev. 25: 3, 4. |
| eight | Yarḥ qêṣ | A month of summer fruit. July. The word קֵץ is translated as “summer”, as well as “summer fruits”. In biblical Hebrew, it is written קַיִץ in absolute form, because the descent of the diphthong “ ai ” into a long “ e ” among the Jews had not yet occurred at the time of writing the uncoordinated text of the Tanakh , and the text of our artifact reflects the Israeli (northern) pronunciation tradition, where this contraction occurred much earlier. Summer or ripe fruits, as a concept, are found in Am. 8: 1, 2; Jer.40: 10, 12. In 2 Samuel 16: 1, this word was translated “ figs, ” as one of the most characteristic summer fruits. In the Septuagint, it says " dates ." |
| 9 | 'a biy [ya] | Abiya. This word is written at an angle of 90 degrees with respect to the rest. Only three letters have reached us: alef , bet , iodine . Most likely, this is the name of the author. It is found in the Bible in two main versions: Aviyyahu (2 Chronicles 13: 20,21) and Aviyya (2 Chronicles 13: 19,22), and it is translated “My Father is Jehovah”. As you can see, the same person, the king of Judea, used both spellings in the text of the Bible. Most scholars believe that the name of the author of the tablet was the fourth letter - һэ , but this part of the artifact was lost. In this case, his name will sound like Aviyya. But, given that the use of mothers of reading in the text is extremely scarce even at the end of words, it can be assumed that the name Aviyyaku was written so. In this case, the last letter ( Vav ) is not written as a reading mother , and һе is read as a full consonant. |
Discussion of the word ירחו
According to the standard interpretation, we are dealing with the result of the evolution of a hypothetical Prasemitic dual form. It is reconstructed in the Pre- Semitic language as warĥa: na in the nominative case and warĥayna in the indirect. If the ending - na is omitted, the word accepts the so-called. “Conjugate form” and translates as “two months ... (of something, such as harvesting)”, and not just “two months”. The conjugated form in the indirect case, taking the pronoun suffix 3l. unit husband R., turns into warĥaysu "his two months." Following the generally accepted word-formation principle proposed by W.F. Albright, the pre-Semitic form warĥa: su > in the northwest turns into yarĥa: hu ( s before the vowel becomes h , and the initial w goes into y )> yarĥayhu (the end of the nominative case is lost and replaced by an indirect case)> yarĥe: hu (diphthong constellation - ay - in the long - e: -)> ירחו yarĥew . Such word formation well explains all consonants and the evolution of the word, as well as the meaning of the word. In addition, this assumes that the form of a unit ירח translates "his month" and has a 3l suffix in pronunciation. unit husband R., who had already evolved to a long vowel - about: and therefore is not reflected in the letter. It should also be assumed that in a later spelling, where mothers of reading appeared at the end of words, the letter һэ (ה) is used to denote the suffix male -o: and the suffix fem. -a:, and only later the suffix -o: they begin to convey the letter Vav (ו), when it, along with the letter iodine (י), began to denote long vowels at the end of the words. The main complaint of most opponents to Albright's theory is that it is not clear from the calendar who the word “him” refers to in the expressions “his two months” and “his month”.
Ginsberg (HL Ginsberg) offered a different explanation. He suggests reading the letter vav (ו) as a long vowel -o:. According to this explanation, the endings of the indirect / accusative case have not replaced the endings of the nominative case, so the word is in the nominative case: yarĥa:. But the Canaanite transition * a: > o: leads to the appearance of the form yarĥo:. This explanation is criticized on the basis that the ending of the dual of the nominative case has not yet gone over to:, as can be seen from the Canaanite records in the Amarna library, where the word he-na-ia , reconstruction. * ğe: na: ya , “my [two] eyes” (EA 144:17, sent from Sidon to Egypt ).
Lemer (A. Lemaire) suggests that the conjugate dual of the nominative case -ay evolved from the earlier * -aw form , which we observe in the Calendar from Gezer. But such an assumption is unlikely, since the -ay form is widespread among many Semitic languages, unlike * -aw .
Garbini (G. Garbini) believes that we are not dealing with a dual number, but with a plural, and in this case the end of the conjugate form of the nominative case will be * -u , which is expressed in the calendar by the letter vav (ו). It is difficult to agree with this option, since Vav (ו) stably denotes the dual number only in the tablet from Gezer.
Yitzhak Sapir puts forward the following explanation. In his opinion, the letter vav (ו) in the word ירחו conveys the consonant w , not the vowels * -u: or -o:, and this consonant expresses the dual form without a pronoun suffix, which, however, is not fixed anywhere else The calendar. This could be a special rare form. However, he finds a connection with the word יַחְדָּו yahdaw “together”, which is well known from the Bible. The root yaĥd- goes back to the pre-Semitic * 'aĥad . In the Central Semitic group, we meet the root * waĥd- , and in the northwest the form yaĥd- is widespread . This word may have the meanings of "one, separate, single." Sapir believes that יחדו "together" is a dual form from -יחד yaĥd- "separate". He also cites the phrase from Psalm 114: 8 (in Russian Bible 113: 8) ההפכי הצור אגם־מים חלמיש למעינו־מים “Turning a rock into a lake of water and a stone into a source of water”. The penultimate word can be read as the dual form of מעין or עין - “two sources [of water]”. It is possible that the use of the single word עין in the meaning of "source" and "eye" led to the use of the dual form. Moreover, למ should be considered as an archaic and poetic version of the guiding preposition "k". Although there is nothing in the verse that would indicate a dual number, למעינו is certainly a very unusual form, which is usually explained as an archaic and poetic expression. Please note that the root of the word עין has parallels with ירחו and יחדו . It can be assumed that the dual form that Sapir offers is characteristic of CVCC / CaCC roots. In this regard, another word from Tanakh is recalled : חַיְתוֹ , which is found several times in it. (Genesis 1:24, Psalm 50:10 (Rus. 49:10), Isa. 56: 9, etc.) and, apparently, is directly related to the phenomenon under discussion, although it is not mentioned by Yitzhak Sapir.
See also
- Siloam inscription
Links
- An article on the calendar from Gezer on the site of Ruslan Khazarzar .
- Virtual Museum of Ancient Semitic Sript (in English) Here is a good selection of West Semitic written monuments.
- A detailed analysis of the plate on the website of K. Hanson (KC Hanson) (in English) .
- Description of the calendar from Gezer in English . There you can download high-quality images of this plate for personal study.
- A discussion of the word ירחו from a grammatical point of view in English .
When compiling the article, the following editions were used:
- The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew-English Lexicon. Published by Hendrickson Publishers. Tenth Printing - October 2006.
- The Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon by Benjamin Davidson. Published by Hendrickson Publishers. Twelfth Printing - April 2006.
- Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Published by Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. Fifth and revised edition. 1997.
- Synodal translation of the Bible into Russian. Minsk, 2002.
- O. M. Steinberg. Jewish and Chaldean etymological dictionary of Old Testament books. Vilna, 1878.