The Lachish Hieratic Bowl Once Again

Abstract

In a recent article, J.B. Redford (1979:66-67) called attention again to a much debated problem in Canaanite archaeology: destruction date of last Late Bronze Age city of Lachish. Redford concentrated on bowl no. 3 from Lachish, which bears a hieratic inscription dated by J. terny (Lachish IV:133) on palaeographic grounds to end of 19th dynasty, while one sign (the b3 ligature) recalled examples from Great Papyrus Harris (a document of Ramesses IV), thus leaving door open for a date early in 20th dynasty. As Redford notes, contents of text are arranged in three dated entries, namely IV 3yt 26, II smw [ 1 and IV smw I, all in year 4 of an unspecified king, and according to him, inscribed in that sequence. He claims that since ostracon was clearly written by same scribe at a single sitting, can be no other conclusion than that th~ order of entries corresponds to chronological order of receipts, from which he concludes that the anniversary of this particular king's accession date did not fall between IV,26 and XII,I (Redford 1979:67). On these grounds, all kings between Ramesses II (whose fourth year was far too early, palaeographically speaking, to. even be considered) and Ramesses VI would be excluded from candidacy, except Mernephtah, since he is only one who ruled four years or more whose date of accession would result in above-suggested sequence. Redford's argument would indeed be irrefutable if these were three consecutive entries; however, in actual fact, only II smw [ ] and IV smw I are inscribed consecutively (on outside of bowl), while IV 3bt is written separately (on inside). Attempts to solve this problem should concentrate on establishing which part of bowl is to be read first. Cerny (Lachish IV: 133) chose interior, but apparently without any specific textual reason, since bowl does not yield any consecutive text whether read from inside to outside or vice versa. Recently a number of artifacts bearing hieratic inscriptions (four complete bowls, one ostracon and several small sherds) were uncovered in final Late Bronze Age stratum at Tel Sera' (Tell esh-Shariya), a site in northwestern Negev excavated by E.D. Oren (for a detailed discussion of these inscriptions, see Goldwasser, in press). The inscriptions on bowls, all of an administrative nature, are dated by palaeographic considerations to 20th dynasty. This material exhibits ~ame rare phenomenon as Lachish bowl: they are complete bowls of Late Canaanite period inscribed with Egyptian administrative inscriptions, most likely representing a system of income accounting employed by authorities of Egyptian religious institutes at both sites. Significantly, Tel Sera' bowls are inscribed solely on exterior which suggests that there is a very reasonable possibility that it was also exterior of Lachish bowl that was first to be inscribed. If so, consecutive dates on this bowl would be: II smw [ 1, IV smw I and IV 3bt 26, a

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