14 DAY TRIAL // Archaeologists exploring a site located fairly close to a temple in Jerusalem claim to have discovered an inscription that dates to the time of King David or King Solomon.
Thus, evidence suggests that this inscription was written in the 10th century BC.
Information shared with the public says that the inscription was scribbled on the upper part of a ceramic jar, of which the researchers were only able to recover one small fragment.
Some of the letters are almost one inch (2.5 centimeters) tall. Odds are the ceramic jar was forged from clay extracted from the hills that surround the city of Jerusalem.
Preliminary investigations have revealed that, contrary to expectations, this inscription is not written in Hebrew, but in an ancient form of Canaanite.
Because of this, researchers suspect that whoever made this ceramic jar and saw fit to scribble a message on it was not an Israelite.
On the contrary, he or she must have been either a Jebusite or a member of some other non-Israelite tribe that used to live in this area thousands of years ago.
Archaeologists are not sure what the inscription says, but they believe that the letters made up the name of the ceramic jar's owner. One other possibility is that the message indicated the content of the vessel. Live Science reports that the pottery fragment bearing this inscription was dug out from under the second floor of a building raised in the 10th century BC. The remains of this building sit close to the southern wall of the Temple Mount, the same source details.
Given the location where the ceramic jar fragment was found, archaeologists suspect that the bits and pieces of pottery used to serve as filling for the construction.
Not long before the discovery of this ancient piece of pottery, archaeologists working at another site close to Jerusalem stumbled upon a seal depicting a fight between a man and a lion.
Specialists have reasons to believe that the seal was intended to tell the story of Samson.