BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Hook, Line, and Sinker: Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet Debunked?

Archaeologist offers new interpretation of controversial artifact

The Mt. Ebal curse tablet. Photo by the Associates for Biblical Research.

Initially hailed by its discoverers as “the most ancient Hebrew inscription ever found,” the controversial Mt. Ebal curse tablet may be no more than a common fishing weight. At least that is the suggestion of archaeologist Amihai Mazar, who published his interpretation of the artifact in the Israel Exploration Journal, alongside two other articles skeptical of the discoverers’ claims.

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Fishing for a Find

First announced in 2022, the Mt. Ebal curse tablet, as it has become known, quickly became one of the most controversial archaeological finds of recent years. The “tablet” is a piece of folded lead, measuring less than 1 inch square. Found during sifting of previously excavated soil taken from the West Bank site of Mt. Ebal near Nablus, the tiny piece of lead was said to include a 48-letter inscription with multiple references to the god Yahweh. The object instantly made headlines, although the scholarly publication of the claimed inscription did not appear until more than a year later. Since then, scholars have heavily scrutinized the team’s conclusions, and now one archaeologist has stepped forward to offer a new interpretation.

According to Amihai Mazar, Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the lead tablet is likely nothing more than a common fishing net weight. Such objects were widely used in the ancient Mediterranean and were frequently made from lead during the Late Bronze Age II (c. 1400–1200 BCE), the period to which the Mt. Ebal tablet supposedly dates.

Lead fishing weights in the Archaeological Museum of Chania, Crete. Courtesy Gad Barnea.

Often made of a small rectangular strip of lead, these weights were folded around the ropes of fishing nets to hold them underwater. Excavations have revealed hundreds of such Bronze Age fishing weights, with many even featuring schematic carvings of nets or other patterns on the soft lead surface, similar to the letter-shaped markings from the Mt. Ebal example. As such, Mazar accepts the arguments of many scholars that the alleged inscription is likely nothing more than a series of striations in the lead, and at most was a mundane schematic carving.

While varieties of fishing weights existed, one common type was crafted from a lead strip measuring roughly 1 by 2 inches and less than 1 inch thick. When folded, these weights were nearly identical in size, weight, and appearance to the piece of lead found at Mt. Ebal. Such lead weights have been excavated in Crete and Greece, and similar examples have been found at sites in the southern Levant, including Haifa and Ashkelon.

As archaeologists and epigraphers continue to raise questions about the validity of the original discoverers’ claims and interpretations, Mazar’s proposition provides an additional layer to the debate. Although it remains uncertain how a fishing implement would have ended up in the rugged central hill country of the southern Levant, many such weights have been uncovered in funerary contexts, suggesting they could have a ritual and symbolic as well as practical function.

Read more in Bible History Daily:

An Early Israelite Curse Inscription from Mt. Ebal?

A Biblical Altar on Mt. Ebal and Other Israelite Footprints in the Jordan Valley?

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library:

Two Early Israelite Cult Sites Now Questioned

Has Joshua’s Altar Been Found on Mt. Ebal?

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