Siloam (Hezekiah's) Tunnel Inscription 730 BCE

Map showing the tunnel. The inscription was found at the meeting point which is where digging teams from each end met. They seem to have been following a natural drainage fissure leading out of the Gihon spring.
 From Biblical Archaeology Society at: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/biblical-archaeology-sites/siloam-pool/

Siloam Tunnel Was Cut To Widen Existing Water Crevice During the 730 BCE Drought

(January 18, 2024) The Siloam inscription or Silwan inscription (KAI 189) was found in the ancient Siloam tunnel which brings water from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan ("Siloam" in the Bible). 

The inscription reads:

  1. Life-threads are nourishing nothing.  Astrology-magic is emanating nothing.  Nothing makes visible Yahu's life-manifestations.  The reassignments of life-thread's nourishments are nothing.  .....
  2. Rain can be expelled (into the world) by Alu. [several words] are fighting the activations. Considerations (focused magical emotions) are lacking.  Nothing .....
  3. Those of Alu's divine-powers do the weaving. Yahu's omens are associated and manifested by the sky-shell's Sirius.  Fertility-fluids [verb] can be emotionally triggered by  ....  is not nourishing Yahu.
  4. When revelations are being nourished by nothing then starvation is caused.  Su is nothing.  Anxiety is being nourished and expelled.  Emotional-energy is lacking for queries. Astrology-magic is shepherding Su.  Impulsiveness [2 words].  Diversion of the rain ....
  5. The supervisors (astrological powers of fate) can emotionally-trigger fertility-fluids. The Revealer (Yahu) can emotionally-trigger SuShu (unkown word).  Those Alu-powers of the sky-shell are raking nothing.  [ few words] Alu can be energized. The Reed-Boat (Ayu) is filtering the Revealer (Yahu)
  6. Astrological-magic ....  Yahu ....

The tunnel but not its inscription was discovered in 1838 by Edward Robinson. In 1880, a 16-year-old pupil of Conrad Schick, the head of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews institute for vocational training, found the inscription when exploring the tunnel. It was cut in the rock on the eastern side, about 19 feet into the tunnel from Siloam Pool. Schick explained in his initial publication about the inscription:

  •     ... one of my pupils, when climbing down the southern side of [the aqueduct], stumbled over the broken bits of rock and fell into the water. On rising to the surface, he discovered some marks like letters on the wall of rock. I set off with the necessary things to examine his discovery.

The pupil was later identified as Jacob Eliahu (later Spafford, following his subsequent adoption by Horatio Spafford). Seventy years later, in 1950, Eliahu's adoptive sister, Bertha Spafford Vester, wrote of the discovery story, which took place a year prior to her arrival in the city:

  •  Jacob was above the average in intellect, with the oriental aptitude for languages. He spoke five fluently, with a partial knowledge of several others. He was interested in archaeology, and the year before we came to Jerusalem he discovered the Siloam Inscription... His imagination was fired by learning about the subterranean tunnel in the Ophal Hill that had been excavated by King Hezekiah to bring water inside the threatened city ... It is supposed to be haunted by a dragon or genie ... Nevertheless, Jacob determined to explore the tunnel ... Jacob, feeling his way, suddenly was conscious that the chisel marks had changed and were now going from left to right. He realized he must be in the exact place where the King's workmen had met under the city. Carefully he felt all around the walls, and was certain that his fingers detected an inscription chiseled in the stone.

In July 1890 a resident of Jerusalem had the inscription removed from the wall of the tunnel. During this work the inscription cracked into six or seven pieces and several letters were damaged at the breakpoints.

The Ottoman government in Jerusalem which owned all archaeological remains in its territory became aware of this theft near the end of the year. During 1891, both the real and a forged copy were given to the region's governor, Ibrahim Hakki Pasha who put the inscription on display in the Jerusalem Serāj, where it was viewed by large crowds. The inscription was subsequently sent to Istanbul.

Casts of the inscription in situ had been made by Hermann Guthe in 1881. The first copy was deposited in the Schneller Orphanage, the second broke during the transport to Germany and a third was held by the Deutscher Verein zur Erforschung Palästinas (German Association for the Exploration of Palestine, DVEP).

Reference

Wikipedia at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siloam_inscription

Lake bottom Core sample data from the Sea of Galilee showing the droughts
Lake bottom Core sample data from the Sea of Galilee. In historical times it shows two major droughts with several minor ones. Minor droughts are indicated anytime the curves turn downward. 
The 50 year long Great Drought of 1180 to 1140 BCE (Iron Age 1 period) is what ended the Bronze Age and the 5-year long Elijah drought of 845-840 BCE. The yellow gives the tree pollen level while the green gives the non-tree pollen level. (Langut and Finkelsein 2013)

Major Levant Droughts Based on Pollen Data From Sea of Galilee

(April 2, 2022) Droughts separate the archaeological periods in the Levant. States weakened by local droughts were often subject to raids right after the droughts by Mesopotamian empires which were unaffected due to their irrigation. Below is the latest widely accepted chronology proposed by Amihai Mazar in 2014 shown below: 

Droughts According to Drought Chart

  1. 1180-1140 BCE - Great Drought
  2. 980 BCE
  3. 845-840 BCE - Elijah Drought
  4. 732 BCE - led to Assyrian invasion
  5. 605 BCE - led to Babylonian invasion

References

Langut, D. Finkelsein, I, Litt, T. (2013) Climate and the Late Bronze Collapse: New Evidence from the Levant. Tel Aviv 40:149-175. Online at https://www.academia.edu/6053886/Climate_and_the_Late_Bronze_Collapse_New_Evidence_from_the_Southern_Levant
Mazar, Amihai (2005) The Debate over the Chronology of the Iron Age in the Southern Levant: its History, the Current Situation and a Suggested Resolution. pp. 15-30 in: T. Levy and T. Higham (editors), The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating - Archaeology, Text and Science. London. Online at: https://www.academia.edu/2632501/The_Debate_over_the_Chronology_of_the_Iron_Age_in_the_Southern_Levant_its_History_the_Current_Situation_and_a_Suggested_Resolution_2005

Reference

Wright, William (editor) (1875) The Paleographical Society Facsimiles of  Manuscripts and Inscriptions, page 382.  Printed by W. Clowes. Online at: https://archive.org/details/gri_33125010468029/page/n381/mode/2up


A good drawing of the incription with an early attempted translation based upon Hebrew. This translation and its derivatives has never been fully justified and is more fantasy than reality based upon the find location of the inscription near where the two teams of diggers seem to have met.
Photo from United States Library of Congress at: https://loc.gov/pictures/resource/matpc.04121/Digital ID: (digital file from original) matpc 04121 https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/matpc.04121 Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-matpc-04121 (digital file from original)Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print 

(January 19, 2024)  This is in the Persian empire letter style commonly called Aramaic. Uncertain letters on the drawing are corrected by examining the image.

Translation of Lines 1 and 2 in Akkadian (Lev Text 67)

(read right to left. Capital letters on object. Small letters are inferred Inner vowels. Vowels are italic bold) 
  1. Qu  Bu  E.  Su  Zu  E.  E  YaHu  Du  BeRu.  ENu  Qu  Bu  E.   YS  .... (Lev 67.1)
  2. ZeNu  AṢu  ALu  R[ 4 words ]D  ṢaLu  Ṣu.  ANu  Lu  E ..... (Lev 67.2)

(Dual use letters are E/H, I/Y, U/W, and '/A in which vowel appears at beginning of words except for Yahu which is keeping its traditional Hebrew transliteration)

In English

  1. Life-threads are nourishing nothing.  Astrology-magic is emanating nothing.  Nothing makes visible Yahu's life-manifestations.  The reassignments of life-thread's nourishments are nothing.  .....
  2. Rain can be expelled by Alu. [several words] are fighting the activations. Considerations (focused magical emotions) are lacking.  Nothing .....

(January 19, 2024)  This is in the Persian empire letter style commonly called Aramaic. Uncertain letters on the drawing are corrected by examining the image.

Translation of Lines 3 and 4 in Akkadian (Lev Text 67)

(read right to left. Capital letters on object. Small letters are inferred Inner vowels. Vowels are italic bold) 
  1. A  ALu  Di'u  SaKa.  YaHu  ITu  AZu  U  Du  EBu  ŠeRu.  Mu  IMu  Nu[1]   ....S  Bu  Ya  YaHu. (Lev 67.3)
  2. U  Nu  Bu  E,   EKu.  Su  E.  ḪeŠu  Bu  U  AṢu.  Gi  Lu  QeRu.  Tu  Re'u  Su.  SeRu [3]. LaRu  ZeNu   ?Y  LK? (Lev 67.4)

(Dual use letters are E/H, I/Y, U/W, and '/A in which vowel appears at beginning of words except for Yahu which is keeping its traditional Hebrew transliteration)

In English

  1. Those of Alu's divine-powers do the weaving. Yahu's omens are associated and manifested by the sky-shell's Sirius .  Fertility-fluids [verb] can be emotionally triggered by  ....  is not nourishing Yahu.
  2. When revelations are being nourished by nothing then starvation.  Su is nothing.  Anxiety is being nourished and expelled (into the world).  Emotional-energy is lacking for queries. Astrology-magic is shepherding Su.  Impulsiveness [2 words].  Diversion of the rain ....

(January 19, 2024)  This is in the Persian empire letter style commonly called Aramaic. Uncertain letters on the drawing are corrected by examining the image.

Translation of Lines 5 and 6 in Akkadian (Lev Text 67)

(read right to left. Capital letters on object. Small letters are inferred Inner vowels. Vowels are italic bold) 
  1. EMu  IMu  Mu.  Nu  EMu  SuŠu.  A  ALu  EBu  RaKu  E.  ?M  A?  ?? AL  Gi  AMu.   ESu  Nu      (Lev 67.5)
  2. T  A ??  E  YaHu  .......    (Lev 67.6)

(Dual use letters are E/H, I/Y, U/W, and '/A in which vowel appears at beginning of words except for Yahu which is keeping its traditional Hebrew transliteration)

In English

  1. The supervisors (astrological powers of fate) can emotionally-trigger fertility-fluids. The Revealer (Yahu) can emotionally-trigger SuShu (unkown word).  Those Alu-powers of the sky-shell are raking nothing.  [ few words] Alu can be energized. The Reed-Boat (Ayu) is filtering the Revealer (Yahu)
  2. Astrological-magic ....  Yahu ....