Michael Hasel
Michael G. Hasel (PhD, University of Arizona) is Director of the Institute of Archaeology and Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Archaeology, Southern Adventist University. He has published ten books and over 150 articles on subjects ranging from archaeology, Egyptology, and biblical studies. He is currently National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the W. F. Albright of Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, Israel. He has directed excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, Socoh and Tel Lachish.
Presenter at
Spring Bible & Archaeology Fest 2025, April 5-6, 2025
The Ivory Comb Inscription: Lice and Literacy at Lachish
In 2016 the oldest alphabetic sentence ever found in history was discovery on an ivory comb at Tel Lachish by a team led by Southern Adventist University. In 2022 the inscription was published by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Southern and was subsequently featured in the New York Times, The Smithsonian, CNN, BBC and 60 other news outlets. Discovery what a sentence over 3,700 years old tells us about literacy and life in ancient Canaan and the early history of alphabetic writing that eventually was used to write the books of the Bible.
