A Practice Letter on a Jar from Kuntillet Ajrud

The following letter-like Hebrew inscription was written in ink on a large storage jar found at Kuntillet Ajrud in the northern Sinai Peninsula; it dates to the late ninth or early eighth century BCE. Most of the artifacts and inscriptions found at the site show connections with the Northern Kingdom of Israel (including a mention of Samaria, its capital), although the jars themselves were manufactured in or near Jerusalem. The function of the site is debated. Two of the storage jars were covered by pictures and inscriptions, including the present inscription and another like it, and abecedaries (listings of the letters of the alphabet; see “Abecedaries from Kuntillet Ajrud”). Given the large size and weight of the jars (3.5 feet high and 2 feet wide at its widest point, and about 30 pounds), these inscriptions cannot have been letters that were actually sent; the jars may have been used as a kind of “blackboard” for teaching the alphabet and standard letter-writing formulas (salutations and closings), just as the drawings may have been practice sketches for the murals found at the site.