“You are Cursed by the God YHW:” an early Hebrew inscription from Mt. Ebal

You are cursed by the God YHW - this is the text of the curse that scientists managed to decode from a small lead tablet found on Mount Ebal in the West Bank. The inscription is two centuries older than all the Hebrew texts known to date in Israel. The text that the researchers uncovered is written in Proto-Hebrew script, which can be dated to about 1400-1200 BCE. The lead amulet could not be mechanically opened without fatal damage. Experts therefore used X-ray computed tomography to read the text, including virtual table straightening. Daniel Vavřík from the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the CAS made a significant contribution to the international research. The cursing tablet (defixe) was discovered during the analysis of material left over from the excavations of Israeli archaeologist Adam Zertal, who was engaged in research on Mount Ebal in Samaria in the West Bank between 1982 and 1989. He discovered two altars there. The smaller Late Bronze Age altar, which the archaeologist dated to the mid-13th century BC, lay directly below the larger Iron Age altar. The amulet probably came from the altar's filling. According to biblical tradition, the first Israelite leader, Joshua, was to build an altar on Mount Ebal as part of a ceremony to renew his covenant with the Lord shortly after the Israelites returned to Canaan from Egypt. The lead tablet has external dimensions of 20 × 20 × 4 mm. It was created by folding a lead strip with engraved text so that it would remain hidden inside and not be visible from the outside.