by Gur Salomon
JERUSALEM, July 12 (Xinhua) -- A tiny clay fragment dating back to the 14th century B.C., which was found recently in excavations outside Jerusalem's Old City walls, constitutes the oldest written document ever found in the city, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said on Monday in a statement.
"The find, believed to be part of a tablet from a royal archive, further testifies to the importance of Jerusalem as a major city in the late Bronze Age, long before its conquest by King David," the statement read.
The clay fragment was uncovered during sifting of fill excavated from beneath a 10th century B.C. tower dating back to the period of King Solomon in the Ophel area, located between the southern wall of the Old City and the City of David to its south.
It is 2 cm by 2.8 cm in size and 1 cm thick and contains script markings of Ancient Mesopotamia and cuneiform symbols in Akkadian, the lingua franca of that era, mainly used for diplomatic correspondence between kingdoms.
Tablets bearing diplomatic messages were routinely exchanged between kings in the ancient Near East, and it is most likely that the fragment was part of such a "royal missive," Wayne Horowitz, a scholar of Assyriology at the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology, said in the issued statement.
Horowitz and Dr. Takayoshi Oshima, a researcher at the University of Leipzig, deciphered the script etched on the 3,400- year-old fragment, which comprised the central left border of a rectangular tablet. Both interpreted the symbols to include the words "you," "you were," "later," "to do" and "them." Full details of the find were published on Monday in the Israel Exploration Journal.
