The research of a forensic handwriting specialist with 27 years of experience in the Questioned Documents Laboratory of the Israel Police has turned a long-held ancient belief upside down—in 600 BCE literacy was widespread among the inhabitants of the Judah.
Previously, many believed literacy was only attained by a few royal scribes. The recent work of Shira Faigenbaum-Golovin and a handful of scientists at Tel Aviv University prove that is untrue. The results of their study are published in PLOS One.
“For the period following the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BC, there is very scant archaeological evidence of Hebrew writing in Jerusalem and its surroundings, but an abundance of written documents has been found for the period preceding the destruction of the Temple. But who wrote these documents? Was this a society with widespread literacy, or was there just a handful of literate people?,” asked TAU’s Arie Shaus, co-author of the paper.
To answer that question, the research team examined 18 fragments of pottery vessels containing ink inscriptions that were found at the Tel Arad military post in the 1960s. In an effort to identify how many authors wrote the inscriptions, the researchers used three different examination methods: an algorithm to differentiate writers via multiple features, a second to differentiate by pixel patterns, and Faigenbaum-Golovin’s human expertise.
The algorithms, which rely on state-of-the-art imaging and machine learning techniques, concluded the 18 inscriptions were written by at least 6 different writers. Faigenbaum-Golovin, however, says it is at least 12 different writers.
“The examination process is divided into three steps: analysis, comparison, and evaluation. The analysis includes a detailed examination of every single inscription, according to various features, such as the spacing between letters, their proportions, slant, etc. The comparison is based upon the aforementioned features across various handwritings. In addition, consistent patterns, such the same combinations of letters, words, and punctuation, are identified. Finally, an evaluation of identicalness or distinctiveness of the writers is made,” explained Faigenbaum-Golovin. (It's interesting to note that in Israel, unlike the United States, a person can be convicted of a crime based on the findings of a forensic handwriting expert.)
Faigenbaum-Golovin discovered the inscriptions held everything from routine issues, such as movement of soldiers and supply of wine, oil and flour to messages of fortification from high-ranking members of Judahite military. In fact, the Tel Aviv team was able to construct an entire flow chart of who wrote to whom regarding defense of the military fortress. The inscriptions were detailed enough to reveal the chain of command within the Judahite army.
“An expert in handwriting analysis knows not only how to spot the differences between writers more accurately, but in some cases may also arrive at the conclusion that several texts were actually written by a single person,” Shaus said.
According to the researchers, the findings shed new light on Judahite society on the eve of the destruction of the First Temple—and on the setting of the compilation of biblical texts.
“Since we found at least 12 different authors out of 18 texts in total, we can conclude that there was a high level of literacy throughout the entire kingdom,” said Barak Sober, professor of applied mathematics at TAU. “Someone had to teach them how to read and write, so we must assume the existence of an appropriate educational system in Judah at the end of the First Temple period. This, of course, does not mean that there was almost universal literacy as there is today, but it seems that significant portions of the residents of the kingdom of Judah were literate. This is important to the discussion on the composition of biblical texts. If there were only two or three people in the whole kingdom who could read and write, then it is unlikely that complex texts would have been composed.”
Photo: Examples of Hebrew ostraca from Arad. Credit: Michael Cordonsky, TAU and the Israel Antiquities Authority