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THE INSCRIBED TABLETS FROM TELL DEIR cALLA
PART II.
WILLIAM H. SHEA
The Biblical Research Institute
Part I of this article furnished an introduction
to the discovery,
context, and general nature of the eleven Deir cAlla Tablets;
gave
attention to the matter of decipherment of the
script of the three
tablets that were inscribed with texts; and
discussed in some detail
the text of the first two written tablets. This
leaves for the present
study the discussion of the text of tablet III and
the integration of
the information obtainable from all three of the
inscribed tablets.
Before proceeding further, however, we first
repeat here the
transliteration and translation of
tablet I as a basis for relations
with the other two texts that follow. The
transcription and linguis-
tic comments given on the text of tablet I stand as
they were
presented in Part I of this article. Also, a new
"Table of the Letters
of the Script of Deir cAlla" appears on the next page, updating
the
listing given in Part I.
Text I: Pethor Smitten
(Deir cAlla
No. 1449)
Transliteration and
Translation
lkm / mk. / wtm.y / whm
/ mk. /ptr
(1a) "To you (have come) a smiter and a finisher,
(1b) and they (are) the smiters of Pethor."
Text II was also transliterated and translated
in Part I of this
article. It is the most difficult of the three
written tablets from Deir
*Editor's
Note: Part I of this article appeared in AUSS 27 (1989): 21-37. Part II
continues the sequential numbering of footnotes
and sections given in that earlier
portion of the study. The figure depicting the
script of Deir cAlla
is, however,
renumbered as "I" inasmuch as it
represents simply a revision of Figure I in Part I.
97
98
WILLIAM
H. SHEA
Figure 1. Revised Table of Letters of the Script of Deir cAlla
DEIR cALLA
TABLETS 99
cAlla to work with because it
has suffered the most damage, having
many cracks on its written surface. These cracks
confuse the identi-
fication of the letters that
were originally written because, in some
instances, they appear to provide additional
strokes with those
letters. Since Part I of this article was
finished, further progress has
been made in distinguishing the original letters
from extraneous
marks due to damage.
While much of the epigraphic and linguistic
discussion of this
text given previously still applies, some
corrections need to be
made to it. The results of these improved readings
have been
incorporated into the
transliteration and translation of text II pre-
sented here. These new
readings also affect, the historical applica-
tion of this text. As a
basis for this new treatment of text II, a new
and more accurate line drawing of it is provided
here.
5. Text II: Pethor's Smiters
(Deir cAlla No. 1441)
Transliteration and
Translation
(1) csr
/ wywbbq / mk
(2) czwvt
/pt.’m / mk
(1) "There was a damming up and the Jabbok (became) a smiter.
(2) Mighty (shocks)
suddenly (became) a smiter."
The
Line Drawing:
Introduction
Since text II was written in boustrophedon
order, it is difficult
to determine which of its two lines should be read
first. The order
of the lines in this text have been reversed here
in comparison to
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WILLIAM
H. SHEA
my previous treatment of them. The reasons for
this are developed
after text III has been translated and interpreted.
Analysis of the Text
of Line 1
The first word of the first line begins with a
clear occurrence of a
half-moon shaped cayin. A yod was
previously read following this cayin.
This
yod should
be rejected now. There is a vertical stroke here, but
further examination of the photographs indicates
that a triangular wedge-
shaped stroke extends to the right from its mid-shaft.
In addition, a
horizontal stroke of short length was incised
across the top of the vertical
stroke. This form resembles that of the
dog-legged-shape sade in other
early alphabets, and as utilized here that letter
contributes to the identifica-
tion of an intelligible
word.
Further examination of the photographs also
indicates that a circular
letter was incised above the head of the sade. This circle
is faint in the
published photograph, but a copy of that
photograph with its lines dark-
ened brings this circle out
more clearly. This circle is rather flat across the
bottom, it is pointed in its right lower quadrant, and
it contains a t-shaped
incision angling down towards the left within its
circle. All of this gives
this sign a head-shaped appearance, which identifies
it as a res. This res is
comparable to those that have been identified in
text III below.
In conjunction with the previously recognized cayin,
these two new
letters make up the word csr. In Hebrew this
verb means "to restrain,
retain, shut up, stop." It may function here
either as a Qal perfect or a
participle. Its subject should be taken as an
indefinite third person, for the
next word is separated off from it by a waw which serves
as a conjunction.
The
word that is connected in this way is the name of a river (see below).
Since
a river is restrained, retained, or shut up when it is dammed up, such
a damming up appears, therefore, to be that to
which reference is made
here.
This type of event is known to have happened in
this region when the
in its west bank near Damiyeh,
biblical Adam, in 1267, 1546, 1906, and
1927
A.D. If a damming up of the
with the Jabbok, then such
an obstruction would naturally have had a
similar effect upon the
The first three letters which follow the word
divider have been read
correctly previously as w-y-w. This combination may be taken as a con-
junction followed by a consonantal yod and a vocalic
waw. Thus
this
word begins with w
+ yo-. Two vertical strokes were written
following the
second waw. The first one curves downwards to the right and the
second
one curves upwards to the right, but they both look
like the same letter,
which has simply been oriented differently in the two
positions. At one
DEIR cALLA
TABLETS 101
time these two letters were read as gimmels, but the gimmel in text
III has
a head that makes a 100° bend to the right,
whereas these two letters angle
only slightly at their upper and lower ends. This
suggests that these letters
differ from that gimmel. If the curved ends of
these letters were expanded
into triangular heads, as has been done with dots
for the beth
in btym of
text III, these 1etters could easily be read as beths. My
suggestion is that the
scribe of this text, working with a somewhat different
orthography than
the scribe of text III, wrote these two beths here with
this form.
At first glance, the last letter in this
word-box looks like a trefoil sign
pointing upwards. This was previously identified
as a kaph,
but closer
inspection reveals that the part of the stroke that
extends upwards to the
right also curves around and bends back towards the
left upstroke. That
makes this letter one which consists of a
quasi-circular head with a short
tail extending to the left. There are four main
letters with closed heads and
tails in the early alphabets: beth, dalet, qoph, and res. Beth, dalet, and res
have been identified elsewhere in these texts and
this letter does not look
like them; therefore, by a process of elimination
this letter should be
identified as a qoph, its first occurrence in
these texts.
From these letter identifications the word
written after the conjunction
in this word-box can be identified as ywbbq. This
corresponds rather
directly with the way in which the name of the
in the biblical text, with only two minor
variations. In the MT the beth of
this name was doubled with a dagesh, but here it appears to
have been
doubled by writing out the two letters. This was
an irregular practice not
continued in later inscriptions. Given the early
date of the alphabetic
writing of these tablets, however, experimental
irregularities like this are
only to be expected. The second variation is that
this word was written
with an o-vowel
in first position while the Massoretes pointed it
with an
a-vowel. Since this text is two
millennia older than the Massoretic point-
ing, however, the o-vowel
should be taken as more original.
The final word of this line, mk, refers
to a "smiter," and should be
identified linguistically as it was in Part I. The
proper name which
precedes it identifies that "smiter," i.e., the
dammed up and overflowed this area. Text I mentions,
but does not
identify, "smiters"
of the region. Text II reveals that the river which
overflowed after it was dammed up was one of these smiters.
Analysis of the Text
of Line 2
The first word of the second line remains the
same linguistically,
czwvt. This is the word for
"strong, mighty," with a feminine plural
ending. Previously I interpreted this word as
referring to human forces or,
more specifically, Israelite troops that came from Pithom in
time of the Exodus. Since the next word can no
longer be read as Pithom,
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WILLIAM
H. SHEA
however, this interpretation must be abandoned.
My new reading of the
next word now indicates that these
"mighty" ones, whatever they were,
came upon Pethor
"suddenly." Text III, discussed below, indicates that
when these mighty ones came upon Pethor
so suddenly, they caused the
collapse of houses there. Since human attackers
could be fended off for a
time at least, they do not fit this description very
well. The suddenness of
the disaster and its effects suggest rather that
the mighty ones that affected
the town in this way were shock waves of an
earthquake. Given the
location of this site in the earthquake-prone
area of the
given also the archaeological evidence for
earthquakes found in the ex-
cavations, such an occurrence
here seems quite reasonable.
Three of the four letters in the next word stand
as they were read
previously. The problematic letter is the third
one. The clear portion of
this letter consists of a vertical stroke with a
triangular wedge extending to
the left from its mid-shaft. In Part I of this
article two horizontal strokes
extending to the left were also read as connected
to the superior and
inferior poles of the vertical stroke of this
letter. These additional horizon-
tal strokes should now be
discarded as not connected with this letter for
they appear to be cracks in the tablet due to
damage.
An epigraphic indicator for this revision comes
from the mem
incised
above and to the left of this letter. If a horizontal
stroke extended to the left
from the superior pole of this vertical stroke, the
right-hand downstroke of
the mem would have crossed it. This is unlikely, for this
crossing could
easily have been avoided and does not occur anywhere
else in the three
tablets. Thus the faint line here is more likely
a crack due to damage and
should not be taken as a part of the letter. The same
can be said for the
crack extending to the left from the inferior pole of
the vertical stroke.
Without these horizontal strokes, this letter
cannot be a he or heth. It
still remains, however, to establish the real
identity of this letter. If its
horizontal wedge were extended across the vertical
stroke, and the superior
and inferior margins of that wedge were separated,
it would resemble the
form of the ‘aleph
in other early alphabets. In view of that resemblance
this letter should be taken as an ‘aleph here, the first occurrence of the
‘aleph to be recognized in these texts. The third word in
this line can be
read as pt’m, "sudden, suddenly." Whatever occurred by
means of the
actions of the "mighty ones" should
have taken place "suddenly." This
suddenness strongly suggests that the "mighty
ones" are to be identified as
the shock waves of an earthquake. The description
of the disaster which
follows in text III fits well with a disaster of
this nature.
The word, mk, which means "smiter," stands at the end of this line as
it was previously read. Thus these strong shocks
which suddenly struck
Pethor constituted the second of the two smiters mentioned in text I, the
"finisher" referred to there. The reason for this
ordering of the statements
in text II is discussed further below.
DEIR cALLA
TABLETS 103
The revisions I have proposed for the statements
in text II might be
summarized here as a complement to my previous
study of this text. Six
letters have now been identified more
accurately: the sade
and res in
the
first word of what is now the first line, two beths and a qoph in the
second
word of that line, and an ‘aleph in the second word of the second line. In
addition, these two lines have been reversed in
order from the way in
which they were presented previously.
The revisions now set forth provide a
transliteration and translation
indicating that the smiters
which struck Pethor were not human forces like
the troops of
nature that were unleashed against this site, first by
the nearby river and
subsequently by an earthquake. These
were the two "smiters" of text I, the
first identified there as a "smiter"
and the second as a "finisher."
6. Text III: Pethor's State
(Deir cAlla No. 1440)
Transliteration and
Translation
(1) mkk / btym / dry / ccym
(2) wcyn / ngr / mksmy / wysym
(3) zcm
(1) "The houses have fallen in heaps of
ruins,
(2) and the spring has
poured out covering them,
(3) and a curse has
been placed."
The
Line Drawing:
104
WILLIAM
H. SHEA
Introduction
This final written tablet is in mint condition.
Its writing is
very clear. The third line consists of one word
written along the
bottom edge of the tablet. Line 1 is the bottom line
on the face of
the tablet, and line 2 is the top line on the face
of the tablet. The
reason for following this order rather than the
reverse is syntactical.
The
bottom line begins without a waw, whereas the two statements
in the top line both begin with a waw. These waws should serve
as
conjunctions to join their
statements to those that have gone pre-
viously. It seems likely,
therefore, that this tablet was meant to be
read from bottom to top rather than the reverse.
Analysis of the Text
of Line 1 (Bottom Line)
The first word of the bottom line begins with a
broad v-shaped mem
and two trefoil-headed kaphs. These two kaphs have tails,
whereas the
kaph in the top line of this
text does not, an irregularity in this scribe's
writing. The second kaph is rotated 90º in comparison
to the first, another
irregularity in this text, but there
are parallels to this type of irregularity in
text II. In spite of this rotation, both of these
letters are readily recognizable
as kaphs. The Hebrew word mkk means "to fall down,
sink down, settle
in." It is used in Eccl 10:18 to refer to
houses that fall into ruins due to
neglect. But the houses here were hit suddenly
according to the second
text, so their collapse into ruins must have been
more abrupt than in the
biblical case.
The subject of this verb follows as the second
word in this line, and it
is the plural noun btym, "houses." The beth consists of
a three-point
triangular head atop a vertical unbent tail. The taw is standard in form for
this text. The yod has a dotted head. The yod is used four
other times in
this text, and the mem of the plural ending is only
one of five examples of
that letter in this text. An interesting feature of
the btym
here is the
presence of the yod, representing the i-vowel of the
plural ending -im.
The third word of this line begins with a dotted
triangular head that
has no tail. This is similar to the dalet of the
later scripts, with which it
should be identified. The second letter is taken as
representing another
occurrence of the head-shaped res. It can be compared to the res with
which ngr ends in the top
line, even though slightly different in shape.
The
most common use of dr
or dor in
Biblical Hebrew is as a reference to a
"generation." This idea is derived from the root idea of
a "cycle" or
"circuit." As a verb, dor means "to pile up,"
and the noun "dwelling
place" is also derived from this root. Anyone of
the foregoing meanings
could make sense here, but the idea of a
"circle" or "heap, pile," of ruins
fits best. The final letter of this word is a yod, which serves
as an indicator
DEIR cALLA
TABLETS 105
for a construct relationship of a masculine plural
noun. This word should
thus be taken as in a construct or genitival
relationship with the word that
follows it. It is striking to see the yod of this
relationship written out here,
in contrast to the practice of scribes who wrote
later inscriptions.
The final word of this line begins with two
vertical half-moon shaped
cayins. These are followed by
another yod
and another mem.
This form
corresponds well to the biblical word for
"ruins" in the masculine plural.
In
Biblical Hebrew this word was written with one cayin and two yods,
while here it was written with two cayins
and one yod.
Presumably, these
cayins were intended to be read or pronounced with i-vowels, and the
yod here represents the i-vowel of the
plural ending.
Analysis of the Text of
Line 2 (Top Line)
The first word of the top line begins with what
is, for this text, a
normally shaped waw with a semicircular head.
This should serve as a
conjunction connecting the second thought in the
text with the first
thought written in the line below. The waw is followed
by the vertical
half-eye cayin. Next come the dotted vertical stroke of
the yod and
the wavy
vertical line of the nun. Thus we have here the word cyn. In Biblical
Hebrew
this word can mean either an "eye" or a "spring." The
latter
meaning makes better sense in the context here,
especially in conjunction
with the verbs that follow it.
The nun
which begins the second word is virtually identical to the
nun with which the first
word ends. This is followed by a gimmel with a
curved head, and then a head-shaped res. The Hebrew word ngr means "to
flow, pour, gush forth." In 2 Sam
out, and it is used for wine in Ps 75:9. As a
feminine singular perfect (or
participle) in the Niphal,
it probably was pronounced with a final a-vowel,
but that vowel was not written out here.
The broad v-shaped sign of the mem occurs twice
in the next word,
and its first occurrence is followed by standard
forms of the kaph
and
samek. The word ends with the
vertical stroke topped by a dot to make it a
yod. The kaph-samek
combination at the heart of this word provides the
root ksh, which in Biblical Hebrew commonly means "to
cover." With a
mem preformative,
this form looks like a participle in the Piel, the
con-
jugation in which this root
commonly occurs. The second mem of this
word should be taken as a masculine plural
pronominal suffix inasmuch as
a plural ending on the participle would not fit
with the gender or number
of either the preceding subject or verb. The
antecedent of this plural
pronominal suffix would most logically be the
"ruins" of the "houses"
mentioned in the preceding line.
The yod written after the pronominal suffix may represent an old
case
ending. An archaic survival of
a similar old case ending appears with the
106
WILLIAM
H. SHEA
same suffix on the same verb in the old poem of Exod 15 (v. 5; cf. v. 7).
There
this verb was used for the action of the waters that covered the
chariots of Pharaoh and his men. Here it was used
for a similar action
of a covering by waters, but in this case it was
waters from a spring
that covered ruins of the houses of a town.
Evidently the earthquake
which struck this area and toppled houses also
fractured the water table
that supplied the spring of the town, thus causing
it to pour forth in
abundance.
The initial letter of the next word is a waw, which should
be taken as
a conjunction. This is followed by a word
containing two yods
and ending
with a mem. The vertical strokes of the yods are undotted.
Between them is
a vertical bow-shaped sign of the sin/sin, which Cairus
distinguished from
the nun.
In Biblical Hebrew ysym
parses readily as a third person mascu-
line singular Qal
imperfect of sym, "to put, set,
place." It is interesting to
note that the central yod of this middle weak verb is
written out here.
This verb cannot stand alone. It needs something
to go with it--a
subject, an object, or more. The search for such
a complement leads to the
word on the edge of the tablet, its third line.
Presumably this word was
written there because there was not enough space
left on the second line of
the text written on the face of the tablet. According
to Franken's study of
the scribal methods employed in writing this text,
this was the last word
written on the tablet. It should, therefore,
complete the statement that
began with ysym.
The word written along the edge of the tablet
was zcm.
The cayin
and
the mem have been seen previously in the body of the text. The
sign that
precedes them is a vertical box-shaped letter
with a number of crossbars.
This
looks most like a heth,
but that letter does not fit well here preceding
an cayin. Cairus has
suggested that this sign should be identified as a zayin.
In
favor of that identification is the fact that some of the crossbars incline
downwards at an angle to the left, as does the
crossbar of the later zayin.
In Biblical Hebrew zcm means "to
curse." This word appears, for
example, in a speech made by Balaam of Pethor in which he described
Balak's
instructions to him (Num 23:7). Thus it seems quite appropriate to
find the same word in this text from Balaam's home
town. As a noun, this
word on the side of the tablet serves well as the
subject of the verb at the
end of the second (upper) line on the face of the
tablet. The whole phrase
wysym zcm thus translates,
"and a curse has been placed." Either the scribe
who wrote this text saw the events that had taken
place as the result of a
curse, or a curse was placed upon the site after it
was affected in this way.
Summary of Text III
The falling down of houses referred to in the
first line of this
text is interpreted here as being caused by an
earthquake, presuma-
bly the same earthquake
mentioned at the end of text II. Knocking
DEIR cALLA
TABLETS 107
down the houses was the first destructive action of
this quake,
hence it was mentioned first on the tablet. The quake
also fractured
the water table of the spring at the site causing
it to overflow upon
the ruins of the fallen houses. This was the
"covering" of "them,"
i.e.,
the ruined houses mentioned in the second line of this text.
The
final line of this text refers to the curse, either that from which
these effects resulted, or that which was pronounced
upon the site
after its destruction.
7. The Language of the Texts
With the script of these texts deciphered and
their contents
translated, the language of the texts can now be
analyzed in some
detail. Even though we have only three short texts
with which to
deal, they provide a surprisingly large amount of
linguistic data,
some of it quite extraordinary for texts from so
early a date.
Six verbs occur in these three texts-two in
tablet I (nkh
and
tmm), and one of these (nkh) is used over
again in tablet II. Tablet
III
adds four more verbs (mkk, ngr, ksh and sym).
Perfects and
participles occur, but only one example of an
imperfect (ysym)
and
no infinitives or imperatives appear to be
present. Four different
conjugations are represented: the Qal, Piel, Niphal,
and Hiphil.
All
of these roots and forms are readily recognizable from Biblical
Hebrew.
Five nouns are present in these texts-the words
for "curse,"
“strong (ones)," "houses," "heaps,"
and "ruins." The first of these
is in the singular, the rest are in the plural.
One of the plurals is
feminine, and the others are masculine. One of
the masculine
plural nouns appears in a construct form. There are no recogniz-
able occurrences of the article with the nouns in
these texts, a fact
consistent with the early date of writing. All five
of these nouns are
well known in the vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew. Two
toponyms
occur, the place name of Pethor
in text I and the river name of the
Jabbok in
text II.
Three pronouns occur in these texts, two of them
independent
and one of them suffixed. The second person and
third person
plural are represented. The pronouns correspond in
form with the