Evidence
of Goliath Possibly Found at Tel es-Safi
(November 2005)
Archaeologists from Bar-Ilan
University have found evidence that may prove the
existence of the Philistine man named “Goliath”
from the biblical
narrative. While digging at Tell es-Safi, the biblical
city “Gath of the Philistines,”
the archaeologists discovered a small pottery sherd
that mentions two names very similar to the name “Goliath.”
This sherd is the oldest Philistine inscription ever
found.
The remarkable part of the find is
that Tell es-Safi (Gath), located on the Israeli coast
between Ashkelon and Jerusalem,
is the same town that the Bible claims is the birthplace of Goliath, the biblical figure
that David meets and kills in battle. The inscription may give
evidence that the legendary biblical battle between
the Philistines and the Israelites actually did occur.
Written in “Proto-Canaanite,” archaeologists
placed the date around the 10th or 9th centuries BCE,
which falls in the same time period as the United
Kingdom of ancient Israel.
Two non-Semitic names appear on the
sherd (Alwt and Wlt), and after a careful examination,
some archaeology experts “concluded that the two
names which appear in the inscription are remarkably
similar to the etymological parallels of Goliath,”
which itself is a non-Semitic name. The letters are
Semitic, but the names come from a language of Indo-European
origin, the language family that encompasses ancient
Greek and other related languages. Most scholars believe
that the Philistines migrated from somewhere in the
Aegean region near Greece to ancient Israel, bringing some of the Aegean culture
with them. Over time, the Philistine culture became
infused with the cultures of their neighbors, while
still keep some aspects of their Aegean culture. This
discovery, with Semitic letters and Indo-European names,
may prove this theory to be true.
According to Professor Aren Maeir,
Chairman of Bar-Ilan University's Martin (Szusz) Department
of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, “...this
(inscription) appears to provide evidence that the biblical
story of Goliath is, in fact, based on a clear cultural
realia from, more or less, the time which is depicted
in the biblical text, and recent attempts to claim that
Goliath can only be understood in the context of later
phases of the Iron
Age are unwarranted.”
Sources: IMRA
(November 10, 2005) |