c. 2003 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ A 2,800 year-old stone tablet inscribed with a passage describing the renovation of Solomon’s Temple has been discovered in Jerusalem and may be the first bit of archaeological evidence to confirm biblical descriptions of Solomon’s dynasty and the elaborate house of sacrifice and worship he is said to have constructed.

Some experts, however, have cast doubts as to the authenticity of the artifact, partly because it surfaced recently in a Jerusalem antiquities dealer’s shop rather than as part of an organized archaeological excavation.

But Shimon Ilan and Amnon Rosenfeld, geologists at the respected Israel Geological Survey, say scientific tests of the inscription’s “patina” indicate the crust of age over the script is at least 2,300 years old.

An analysis of the Phoenician-Hebrew script by Hebrew University scholar Ada Yardeni adds another 500 years to the age of the tablet, since the script resembles the kind of handwriting that was common around 800 B.C., during the 9th century B.C. rule of Judah’s King Joash.

“If it is authentic, it is a sensational find, no doubt,” said Gabriel Barkai, a biblical archaeologist with Bar Ilan University who has examined high-quality photographs of the item.

“It is the first royal inscription of one of the kings of Judah or Israel written in the name of the monarch himself. It is the first extra-biblical reference to the building of the first Solomonic Temple in Jerusalem, which is known only through the Bible.”

The inscription on the tablet, the size of a legal pad, describes temple renovations undertaken by Joash, a descendant of the Davidic dynasty, in language remarkably similar to passages in II Kings 12:1-6, 11-17.

In the Hebrew inscription, the king describes how his priests collected money from the public “to buy quarry stones and timber and copper” and asks that following the renovation work, “the Lord will protect his people with blessing.”

During a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) test performed by Ilani and Rosenfeld, specks of carbon and microscopic globules of gold were discovered in the patina overlaying the inscription. A subsequent analysis was done by a laboratory in Florida.

“From a scientific point of view, it’s almost impossible to forge such a thing,” said Rosenfeld of the tests.

Ilani and Rosenfeld believe both the carbon specks and the gold globules may have gradually accumulated on the inscription after the tablet was buried in debris around 586 B.C., during the burning and destruction of the First Temple by Nebuchadnezzar II.

“The patina that developed on the surface takes time to form. Maybe it developed over several hundred years,” said Ilani. He noted the carbon in the patina suggest the tablet was buried by a fire. The microscopic gold globules suggest the tablet could have been in the vicinity of the temple when it was burned to the ground.”

According to Yardeni’s analysis, the script used in the inscription gives the tablet an even older date than the carbon tests. The script resembles the Phoenician-Hebrew style of script that was used during the 9th century B.C., and has been found on two other rare inscriptions from the period.

Following the First Temple’s destruction in 586 B.C., Jews were exiled to Babylon. After the Jews returned from exile, around 538 B.C., they brought with them a more square-style script reflecting a more Hellenistic influence.

Rosenfeld and Ilani see the script style and the nature of the inscription as convincing evidence the tablet was originally produced in the First Temple period around 2,800 B.C. and not in the later Hellenistic period of the Second Temple.

“In addition to the style of script, there is the nature of the inscription itself,” said Ilani. “The biblical idiom used recalls the house of Joash, and logically, it doesn’t make sense that a king (who) reigned in the Hellenistic period would make such a tablet to glorify a king that reigned 400 years earlier.”

The argument is important because while the Second Temple’s retaining walls still stand in the center of Jerusalem’s Old City, no First Temple remains have ever been uncovered in the Old City, a fact that has, in recent decades, generated serious doubts among scholars about the accuracy of biblical passages describing Solmon’s elaborate temple.

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The stone tablet first came to the attention of Ilani and Rosenfeld after an anonymous Israeli owner, who had reportedly purchased the tablet from an antiquities store, offered it for sale to the Israel Museum. The Museum rebuffed the offer due to doubts of its authenticity and the owner subsequently brought it to the Geological Survey to have it evaluated.

“What we have is the object itself, detached from its cultural context, and therefore there are people who suspect it even though the chemical analysis as well as the shape of the letters and the nature of the inscription itself all hint to the possibility of its authenticity,” said Barkai.

Despite the lack of precise information on where the tablet was obtained, a report in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz cited unnamed sources as saying the artifact was uncovered during recent construction work underneath Al Aksa Mosque, the Muslim shrine which now sits atop the ancient Temple Mount.

According to some theories, the tablet may have surfaced amid tons of debris carted away from the site when a number of ancient underground chambers beneath the mosque were converted into auxiliary prayer rooms. From there, it somehow made its way to an antiquities dealer.

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If the tablet is indeed authenticated and linked to the Temple site, it would have widespread political, as well as religious and archaeological ramifications, serving to strengthen longstanding Jewish claims to the disputed area.

Muslim authorities have been adamant that no Jewish temple ever rested on the Temple Mount, site of the Al Aksa Mosque, despite the generally accepted fact the retaining walls of the Second Temple from the time of King Herod remain.

Adnan Husseini, an official with the Islamic Wakf, or Muslim Trust, which administers the Al Aksa site, was quoted by the Associated Press as reaffirming the Wakf’s longstanding position no Jewish antiquities had been found during the recent renovation work.

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