Deir Alla inscription


The Deir 'Alla inscription or Balaam inscription, listed as KAI 312, was discovered during a 1967 excavation in Deir 'Alla, Jordan. It is currently held at the Jordan Archaeological Museum in Amman. It is written in a peculiar Northwest Semitic dialect, has provoked much debate among scholars and has had a strong impact on the study of Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions.

Context, content, significance

The excavation revealed a multiple-chamber structure that was destroyed by an earthquake during the Persian period. The multi-room complex probably had a cultic purpose. The inscription was written on the wall of one of the rooms and contains a story relating visions of Bal'am, son of Be'or, a "seer of the gods", the same name - Balaam, son of Be'or - as in and in other passages of the Hebrew Bible. The Deir Alla inscription's depiction of Bala'am differs from that in the Book of Numbers. Bal'am's god is associated with the goddess Šagar-we-Ishtar. Deities with such names, "Šagar-and-Ishtar" certainly are known to history, but quite separately. The enigmatic narrative also foregrounds the Shaddayin gods who establish a council. It also features the word Elohin, taken to mean "gods" in the plural rather than the Hebrew deity.
The inscriptions were on ink on plastered wall; black and red inks were used as in the plaster inscriptions at Kuntillet Ajrud. Red emphasized certain parts of the text. The inscriptions were written with a broad nibbed pen with ink, an extremely early example. The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies describes it as "the oldest example of a book in a West Semitic language written with an alphabet, and the oldest piece of Aramaic literature."

Reconstruction and translation

When the text was found, it was broken into fragments, which were lying on the ground. The fragments are poorly preserved, and only a part of the text has been found. In all, 119 pieces of ink-inscribed plaster were recovered. The wall, near the summit of the tell, was felled by a tremor.
Scholars have succeeded in arranging many of the fragments into two large 'combinations'. At least to some extent, they had use of information about which fragments were found close together or wide apart on the ground. Still, uncombined fragments remain. For the reading of damaged or missing parts of the text, they sometimes had to guess; however, where the same group of words seems to appear in several places, but with different parts damaged in different occurrences, they could reasonably reconstruct a combined text.
The first complete translation and reconstruction of the inscription was published in 1981. Today, the text in modern Hebrew letters is available online. The text is difficult to read and to interpret. Here is one reconstruction and translation of the first combination:
  1. the book of laam, r, a seer of the gods. To him came the gods at night. him
  2. according to the utterance of El, and they spoke to am, son of Beor, thus:
  3. And Balaam arose in the morning, And he was not ed while he was weep-
  4. ing greviously. And his people came to him, and the to Balaam, son of Beor: "Why do you fast? hy do you weep?" And he sa-
  5. id to them: "Sit down! I will show you what the El Shaddai|Shadd Now come, see what the Elohin are about to do! The Eloin gathered,
  6. while the Shaddayin met in assembly, and said to Shamash|Sha: "Thou mayest break the bolts of heaven, in thy clouds let there be gloominess, and no bril-
  7. liance, darkness and not thy radiance thou mayest cause terror the gloomy ouds– but do not be angry forever! For the swift is re-
  8. proaching the eagle, and the vultures' brood the ostrich. The st the hawk, and the owl the chicks of the heron. The swallow is...ing the
  9. dove, and the sparrow the And staff. Where the stick would lead sheep, hares are eating
  10. rass. The are drinking wine. The hyenas are listening to instruction. The young of the
  11. while is laughing at wise men. And the poor woman is preparing an ointment of myrrh. And the priestess
  12. And...
  13. ...while the deaf are hearing from afar.
  14. ...And all are beholding the oppression by Shagar-and-Ishtar.
  15. ...the leopard. The piglet is driving out the ...destruction and ruins.
A more recent and complete English translation can also be found online.
The second combination:
  4. El satisfies himself with lovemaking.
  5. Why is the tot in the tophet with the foliage?
  6. So that El will be satisfied. He will make to the house of eternity.
  7. a house which no travelers enter, nor does a bridegroom,
  8. as wormrot from a grassy grave. From the reckless affairs of man, and from the lustful desires
  9. Your sacrifices make poor haruspecy.
  10. the bed, cover him with one garment. Look, if you mistreat him he will falter
  11. punishment, under your head, you shall lie on your eternal bed. To pass away to
  12. all in their heart! The corpse moans in his heart! He moans
  13. daughter. There, sacrifices shall be held Bal There is no compassion when death seizes an infant! And an infant
  14. An infant there shall endure, he sighs to his heart as he approaches
  15. To the edge of She and the shadow of the hedge The quest of a king becomes his "moth", and the qst of
  16. and seers. Your quest has become dis from you! Why
  17. To know how to deliver an oracle to his people, you have been condemned for what you have said, and banned from pronouncing words of execration.

Language

Though containing some features of Aramaic, such as the word bar "" rather than the Canaanite ben, the Deir Alla inscription also has many elements of Canaanite languages, leading some to believe it was written in a dialect of Canaanite rather than an early form of Aramaic. The inscription has been dated to 880–770 BC.
Klaus Beyer calls the language South Gileadite.
Holger Gzella reckons the mixture of Canaanite vocabulary and narration with a primarily Aramaic grammatical core reflect a translation of a Canaanite story into a literary Aramaic text. The Semitic Etymological Dictionary categorizes the Deir Alla language as simply "dialect of the inscription from Deir Alla."

Tablets with unknown script and hemp cloth

In the 1960s, in addition to hundreds of vessels like bowls and jars, seven clay tablets were found with an unknown script. As of 2021, they had not yet been fully deciphered, nor has their clay been tested to see if it's local to Deir Alla.
The only discovery of hemp cloth in an archaeological context in the Iron Age Levant is a piece of very fine hemp textile found on a loom in a room adjacent to the one containing the inscription. The entire complex probably had a cultic purpose, the unique and exquisite textile thought to have been woven for the goddess Shagar, who is mentioned in the inscription. The complex most likely dates to the 2nd half of the 9th century BCE, being destroyed by an earthquake around 800 BCE. It may be noted that the hemp product cannabis has been found at an Iron Age cultic site further southwest, Tel Arad in the Negev, as residue of burned incense in a temple - also a surprising discovery.