Gezer Calendar

Overview

A small limestone tablet found in 1908 during R. A. S. Macalister's excavation of Gezer for the Palestine Exploration Fund. According to Macalister's final report, it came from the northern end of trench 8, in debris of his 'Fourth Semitic' period, with little datable material around it. The inscription is scratched into the stone. It has seven lines of writing, plus the remains of an eighth line written vertically and cut off at the break. The back is plain, and the left edge carries a diagonal fret pattern. A peg-hole suggests it was fixed to a wall.

The text lists farming tasks in order, each tied to one month or two: ingathering, sowing, late sowing, the flax harvest, the barley harvest, the harvest of all the rest (or 'harvest and measuring'), pruning or vine-tending, and summer fruit. Read with the 'two months' forms, the list covers twelve months. The vertical line at the edge is usually read as a personal name beginning 'Abi-', and some restore it as 'Abiyah'.

Right after the find, Lidzbarski, Gray, Pilcher, Ronzevalle, Dalman, Vincent, Marti and Cook each published competing readings in the Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement and the Revue Biblique. Macalister collected them in 1912. The main disagreement was whether a repeated sign was the conjunction 'and' or a dual ending meaning 'two months'. Later work split over whether the script and language are Hebrew or Phoenician.

In its own words

(1) Month of the fruit-harvest—Month of (2) the sowing—Month of the after-grass— (3) Month of the flax-harvest— (4) Month of the barley-harvest— (5) Month of the harvest of all [the rest]— (6) Month of the pruning of vine-plants— (7) Month of the fig-harvest—M. Lidzbarski's rendering as printed in R. A. S. Macalister, The Excavation of Gezer 1902-1905 and 1907-1909 (London: PEF / John Murray, 1912), vol. II p. 25. On pp. 25-26 Macalister also prints Vincent's alternative: '(1) Two months, late crops—Two months, (2) sowing—Two months, spring crops— (3) One month, cutting of flax— (4) One month, harvest of barley— (5) One month, all the harvest— (6) Two months, fruits [vines]— (7) One month, summer fruits'.

What the evidence shows

• Material: limestone tablet with the text scratched in. It is not an ostracon.
• Seven horizontal lines survive, plus the start of a vertical eighth line interrupted by the fracture (Macalister 1912, II p. 24).
• The lower part of the tablet is lost along an oblique break through a square peg-hole. A second hole on the back connects to it.
• The back is plain except for one or two tool marks. The left edge has a diagonal fret of about five or six lines to the inch.
• Findspot: trench 8, north end, 'Fourth Semitic debris', with scanty associated pottery (Macalister 1912, II p. 24). This is not a closed, well-stratified context.
• Farming vocabulary on the tablet: ingathering (ʾsp), sowing (zrʿ), late sowing (lqš), flax (pšt), barley (śʿrm), harvest (qṣr), pruning (zmr), summer fruit (qṣ).
• Macalister reports that within a year of the find, opinion on its date was split between the 8th century and earlier (Lidzbarski, Gray and Ronzevalle for the 8th; Vincent and Marti otherwise). Macalister himself put it in the 6th century BCE.

Open questions

• Script and language. W. F. Albright (1943, as quoted by Rollston) called it 'perfect classical Hebrew'. C. Rollston (Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2012) argues that 'there is no lexeme or linguistic feature in the Gezer Calendar that can be considered distinctively Hebrew' and that the script is Phoenician, citing J. Naveh's judgment that 'no specifically Hebrew characters can be distinguished.' A. Koller (JNES 72, 2013) works from the Hebrew lexicon, reading mʿṣd / ʿṣd as the Hebrew term for the flax-harvesting tool and task. D. Sivan (IEJ 48, 1998) sets out the Northwest Semitic linguistic features. The disputed evidence is a handful of word forms and letter shapes. No single feature settles it.
• 'And' or 'two months'. Lidzbarski and Gray (PEFQS 1909) read a recurring sign after 'month' as the conjunction w- ('a month and ingathering'). Vincent (Revue Biblique 1909) read it as a dual or suffix ending, giving 'two months'. His reading turns eight items into twelve months. Ronzevalle reached twelve months another way and argued the text is a rotation of work, not a calendar (all summarized by Macalister 1912, II pp. 25-26).
• Date. Macalister (1912) dated it to the 6th century BCE from associated pottery. The palaeographers he reports put it about two centuries earlier. Today's late 10th or early 9th century BCE date rests entirely on letter shapes, because the findspot does not fix it. Whether it belongs to Solomon's Gezer (1 Kgs 9:15-17) therefore depends on the palaeographic sequence, not on stratigraphy.
• Purpose. Scholars have proposed a school exercise, a tax or administrative schedule (Ronzevalle, via Macalister 1912), or a farmer's mnemonic. The tablet itself says nothing about its purpose. The peg-hole suggests it was displayed or hung up, and that is the only physical clue.

Sources

1. R. A. Stewart Macalister, The Excavation of Gezer 1902-1905 and 1907-1909, vol. II (London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund / John Murray, 1912), pp. 24-27 ('The Calendar Tablet'); plate CXXVII link excavation report
2. M. Lidzbarski, 'An Old Hebrew Calendar-Inscription from Gezer', Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement 41/1 (1909): 26-34. doi:10.1179/peq.1909.41.1.26 link editio princeps
3. A. Koller, 'Ancient Hebrew מעצד and עצד in the Gezer Calendar', Journal of Near Eastern Studies 72/2 (2013): 179-193. doi:10.1086/671444 link study
4. D. Sivan, 'The Gezer Calendar and Northwest Semitic Linguistics', Israel Exploration Journal 48/1-2 (1998): 101-105 link study
5. C. Rollston, Biblical Archaeology Review (May/June 2012); reposted online as 'The Oldest Hebrew Script and Language', Bible History Daily link study
6. M. Dospěl, 'The Gezer Calendar', Bible History Daily (Biblical Archaeology Society) link study

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