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Edomite is the language of Edom, a territory southeast of the Dead Sea that was a kingdom from ca. 845 to ca. 552 B.C.E., extending into the Negev in 597 B.C.E., and into the Judean Shephelah as far as Lachish and Maresha in 587 B.C.E. (Lemaire 2011). The corpus of Edomite inscriptions is still very limited (Israel 1987; Bartlett 1989:209–229; Vanderhooft 1995): an ostracon from Umm el-Biyara (Milik 1966), another one from Ḥorvat ʿUza (Beit-Arieh and Cresson 1985; Beit-Arieh 2007:133–137; Beckin…

Ammonite is the language that was spoken in the territory and kingdom of Ammon, east of the Jordan, during the Iron Age. It is attested in inscriptions dating from circa 800 B.C.E. until the beginning of the 6th century B.C.E. The kingdom of Ammon apparently disappeared during a neo-Babylonian campaign ca. 582 B.C.E. (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities X, 181–182) and later inscriptions are in Aramaic. The corpus of Ammonite inscriptions (Aufrecht 1989; 1999; Hübner 1992:15–129; Israel 1997) is still limited. It contains mainly seals and bullae, many of which were…

[German Version] Mareshah, modern Tell Sandahannah, 38 km southwest of Jerusalem, identified on the basis of Eusebius of Caesarea's Onomasticon and a Greek inscription that mentions a Sidonian community “living in Marisa.” Joshua 15:44 names Mareshah as a city of the Shephelah, related to Caleb (1 Chr 2:42) and Judah (1 Chr 4:21). Mic 1:15 prophesies its capture by Assyria. Its mention in 2 Chronicles (11:8; 14:8,* 9*; 20:37) is a token of its significance at the time when Chronicles was composed. Rehoboam's suppo…

[English Version] I. Stand der Forschung, allgemeinP. ist die Wiss. von der Entwicklung der Schrift und untersucht als wesentlicher Bestandteil der Handschriftenkunde die alten Schriftformen, v.a. die der Antike und des MA. Dabei spielt keine Rolle, ob Tinte verwendet wurde oder ein »epigraphisches« Schriftwerk vorliegt. Die Schrift ist eine empirische Brücke zw. der Archäologie und der Geschichtswiss. (Geschichte) und liefert der P. zwei Ansätze: einen philol. und einen archäologischen. Philol. gese…

[German Version] I. Paleography Today – II. Palestine – III. Texts I. Paleography Today Paleography is the study of the development of writing; as an important element in codicology, it examines early forms of writing, particularly those of antiquity and the Middle Ages. The distinction between the use of ink and “epigraphic” writing is irrelevant. Writing is an empirical bridge between archaeology and the historical sciences (History/Concepts of history); it provides two starting points for paleography, one …