Linear A Ivory Comb Text from Lachish Israel (1400 BCE)

(November 21, 2022)

Text in Akkadian Linear A

1. [                     ] Gi
2. Qu  AKu [ 2 ]P Ḫi          -  (P has no vertical handle, Ḫi is more image based than normal for this time and likely is the missing Phaistos Disk version)
3. ŠiGi  ṢMa  Qu  Ki  Q‘ u  Nu    -  (notice the small vertical line on the Ṣ which is a merger of Linear A styles)

Text Translated into English

1. ……. emotional-energy
2. Life-threads, emotion-owls [2 unreadable words ] Hu-powers
3. Conflict is dehydrating the life-threads due to envy of the Revealer (Yahu)

Comment

1. The only word remaining in this line indicates the text is talking about magical emotional energy. Feelings are what was transmitted to the divine realm.
2. Hu is the connective masculine life power who was represented by the sun. At a deeper level he represented the life network which transmitted life powers (fertility fluids) to the earth from the divine realm. Emotion owls are the mechanism in which emotion magic affects this life network (life-threads). This line is missing its verb so we do not know what sort of interaction is happening.
3. The root cause of some drought are the feelings of envy in the population which is driving conflict. The target of this envy or anger is Yahu to when triggered by the fertility fluids reveals and manifests the invisible life-forms. A common epithet for Yahu is "Revealer." The "power of Yahu" is "Yahweh."

References

(November 21, 2022) Lachish was a major city located 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem. It was occupied during the Pottery Neolithic (5500–4500 B.C.E.), Chalcolithic (4500–3300 B.C.E.), and early Bronze Age (3300–3000 B.C.E.). It slowly grew into a major city during the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1650 BCE) only to be destroyed at the end of that period. It was resettled during the Late Bronze Age (1550-1130 BCE), and Persian/Hellenistic periods (538–37 B.C.E.). The comb text dates to the destruction of the Middle Bronze City when it became part of the destruction debris. Later it was mixed in with later trash and deposited in a pit outside of a Judean palace. The ivory comb was found in June/July 2016 during the 4th season of an archaeological excavation led by Yosef Garfinkel. (Vainstub and all 2022). The comb was found within a meter of the bottom of the trash pit which had debris dating as late as 700 BCE so archaeology cannot be used to date it. The very shallowly incised inscription was noticed  in December 2021 by Dr. Madeleine Mumcuoglu.

Some kind of shrine called the Fosse Temple was constructed in three major phases during the late Bronze Age (1550-1200 BCE, level VII). It was built within a filled-in moat at the northwest corner of the mound outside the city.

The city was destroyed around 1200 BCE during the Bronze Age collapse. The city which appeared after that was an Egyptian influenced city. During this time the Acropolis temple was built in the Egyptian architectural style. A large bronze shoe for the city’s gate socket bore the cartouche of Pharaoh Ramesses III (1182–1151 B.C.E.). This Egyptian influenced city was destroyed around 1130 BCE apparently by the Philistines. It then lay abandoned for two centuries. (The Solar Shrine is  Zoroastrain dating to the Persian empire period)

References