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The Gezer calendar is a small limestone tablet with an early Canaanite inscription discovered in 1908 by Irish archaeologist R. A. Stewart Macalister in the ancient city of Gezer, 20 miles west of Jerusalem. It is commonly dated to the 10th century BCE, although the excavation was not stratified.Aaron Demsky (2007), Reading Northwest Semitic Inscriptions, Near Eastern Archaeology 70/2. Quote: "The first thing to consider when examining an ancient inscription is whether it was discovered in context or not. It is obvious that a document purchased on the antiquities market is suspect. If it was found in an archeological site, one should note whether it was found in its primary context, as with the inscription of King Achish from Ekron, or in secondary use, as with the Tel Dan inscription. Of course texts that were found in an archaeological site, but not in a secure archaeological context present certain problems of exact dating, as with the Gezer Calendar."
Scholars are divided as to whether the language is Phoenician or Hebrew language and whether the script is Phoenician (or Proto-Canaanite) or paleo-Hebrew. Koller argued that the language is Northern Hebrew. The Calendar Tablet from Gezer, Adam L Bean, Emmanual School of Religion Is it “Tenable”?, Hershel Shanks, Biblical Archaeology Review Spelling in the Hebrew Bible: Dahood memorial lecture, By Francis I. Andersen, A. Dean Forbes, p56
The inscription is not a formal calendar, as it describes agricultural seasons with imprecise dates, rather than precise divisions of time as would be required for a ritual or bureaucratic calendar. As such, some of the time units comprise two months rather than one, and none are referred to by the month numbers or names known from other sources.Seth L. Sanders, “Writing and Early Iron Age Israel: Before National Scripts, Beyond Nations and States,” in Literate Culture and Tenth-Century Canaan: The Tel Zayit Abecedary in Context, ed. Ron E. Tappy and P. Kyle McCarter, (Winona Lake, IN, 2008), p. 100–102
The inscription, known as KAI 182, is in Phoenician or paleo-Hebrew script:
Which in equivalent square Hebrew letters is as follows:
This corresponds to the following transliteration, with spaces added for word divisions:
The text has been translated as:
Possible equivalent months:
Scholars have speculated that the calendar could be a schoolboy's memory exercise, the text of a popular folk song or a children's song. Another possibility is something designed for the collection of taxes from farmers.
The scribe of the calendar is probably "Abijah", whose name means "Yah (a shorter form of the Tetragrammaton) is my father". This name appears in the Bible for several individuals, including a king of Judah (1 Kings 14:31). If accurate, then it would be an early attestation of the name YHWH, predating the Mesha Stele by more than a century.
The Gezer calendar is currently displayed at the Museum of the Ancient Orient, a Turkish archaeology museum, Gezer calendar Istanbul Archaeological Museums, Artifacts as is the Siloam inscription and other archaeological artifacts unearthed before World War I. A replica of the Gezer calendar is on display at the Israel Museum, Israel.
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