Another mention of Gath – this time from the Persian period?

On By arenmaeirIn Miscellaneous

The place name “Gath” seems to be very popular nowadays. Having just mentioned the about-to-be-published bulla which may mention the king of Gath a few day ago, Prof. Bezalel Porten (HU), has now kindly informed me that he is currently working on the analysis of a Persian Period ostracon from a private collection, one of the scores of Aramaic ostraca that are in private collections, that apparently derive from Kh. el-Kom (most probably biblical Makkedah) in the Judean Shephelah. These ostraca, which many have already been published and many more are being worked on, were all excavated illicitly and reached various collectors in Israel and throughout the world.

Prof. Porten has informed me that the specific ostracon (No. ISAP897 [ISAP = Institute for the Study of Aramaic Ostraca]) has the following on it:
“It’s beautifully and spaciously written.
Line 1: Saadel
Line 2: semolina (n$yp), k(or) 1
Line 3: on 22 of Elul BGT”

What is the meaning and signficance of this:
In theory, this could be interpreted as: the person Saadel, delivered one kor (a measurement) of semolina, on the 22nd of the month of Elul, at Gath.
In principal, there is clear evidence for the Persian period at Gath (see the Persian period at Gath discussed here) so this would fit in with this interpretation.

On the other hand, this should be qualified:
1) This is an unprovenanced find from a collection, which immediately raises “red flags” as to provenance, authenticity, etc.
2) If GT is the name of a place, is this the Gath located at Tell es-Safi? There are other places called Gath in the Land of Israel, although in light of the probable origin of this ostracon (along with other, similar ostraca), from the southern Shephelah, our Gath is the closet site of this name.
3) Does the word GT refer to a place name? Could this refer to a location where there was a olive or wine press? Or even perhaps, GT may have the general meaning of a place where agricultural produce is collected?

Thus, once again, one gets “mixed feelings” from this. It would be very nice if this refers to our Gath, and in principal this is possible. On the other hand, this cannot be clearly proven.

What would be nice would be to find a collection of Aramaic ostraca from Tell es-Saf/Gath… (ok – we’ll add this to our list as well!)

Aren

6 thoughts on “Another mention of Gath – this time from the Persian period?”

    1. arenmaeir

      That is the name of the “institute” that B. Porten formed for the study of the Aramaic ostraca from the collections. From what I know, it is more on paper than anything else.

      Aren

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  2. Pingback: Another bulla mentioning Gath? « The Tell es-Safi/Gath Excavations Official (and Unofficial) Weblog

  3. Yigal

    The question of whether GT here refers to a place named Gath or to some kind of agricultural installation is similar to what happened with the reading of “Makkedah” in the same series of ostraca. Originally, Ephal and Neveh read MNQRH – which they translated as “storage pit” (from NQR). It was apparently Lemaire who first suggested reading MNQDH, and that this was the Aramaic spelling of the biblical “Makkedah”, which had previously been identified by Dorsey at the same Khirbet el-Kom that the ostraca seemed to be coming form.

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