--- title: "\"You are Cursed by the God YHW\": an early Hebrew inscription from Mt. Ebal — Stripling 2023" description: "A small folded lead tablet was found in 2019 by wet-sifting the dump of Zertal's excavation of the Mt. Ebal \"altar\"." authors: ["Scott Stripling", "Gershon Galil", "Ivana Kumpová", "Jaroslav Valach", "Pieter Gert van der Veen", "Daniel Vavřı́k"] year: 2023 venue: "Heritage Science" source: "https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9" doi: "10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9" licence: "CC BY (per OpenAlex/publisher; Heritage Science)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/stripling-2023-cursed-god-yhw-early-hebrew/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/stripling-2023-cursed-god-yhw-early-hebrew/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2023](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2023/page/7/) / "You are Cursed by the God YHW": an early Hebrew inscription from Mt. Ebal # "You are Cursed by the God YHW": an early Hebrew inscription from Mt. Ebal **Authors:** Scott Stripling, Gershon Galil, Ivana Kumpova, Jaroslav Valach, Pieter Gert van der Veen and Daniel Vavrik · **Year:** 2023 · **Venue:** Heritage Science 11, article 105 **Link:** [doi.org/10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9](https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9) · **Licence:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) [**3** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W4376126574) OpenAlex, 2026-10-14 · [Heritage Science](https://openalex.org/S2736968195) · [licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) - [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9) - [PDF](https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9) - [DOI 10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9](https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9) - [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W4376126574) **Authors (6)** 1. [Scott Stripling](https://openalex.org/A5073602240) [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/145560885) · h 2 · 12 citations · 18 works 2. [Gershon Galil](https://openalex.org/A5061682238) [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/103963034) · h 8 · 277 citations · 89 works 3. [Ivana Kumpová](https://openalex.org/A5069139120) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8556-4996) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/13996191) · h 14 · 569 citations · 88 works 4. [Jaroslav Valach](https://openalex.org/A5056751434) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9185-1534) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/144582868) · h 10 · 590 citations · 66 works 5. [Pieter Gert van der Veen](https://openalex.org/A5028596087) [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/2491392230) · h 2 · 8 citations · 16 works 6. [Daniel Vavřı́k](https://openalex.org/A5042539559) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8599-9903) · h 20 · 1,405 citations · 126 works Citations and author metrics: OpenAlex, 2026-10-14; authors with the same name are not always told apart. ## What it is about A small folded lead tablet was found in 2019 by wet-sifting the dump of Zertal's excavation of the Mt. Ebal "altar". It could not be opened, so the team read its inner faces by X-ray tomography and image processing. They read 48 proto-alphabetic letters (eight letter types) in 14 words, written in several directions, as a curse in three lines: "you are cursed by the god YHW, cursed; you will die, cursed — cursed, you will surely die; cursed you are by YHW — cursed", with ארור six times inside and perhaps six outside (twelve, as in Deut 27). They date it to Late Bronze Age II, call its structure chiastic, and present it as the oldest Hebrew inscription and the oldest attestation of the divine name. The reading and dating rest on faint tomographic traces and have been strongly disputed by other epigraphers; the card records the authors' claims only. ## Ideas - I2. The pairing מוֹת תָּמוּת (infinitive absolute + finite, "you will surely die") is a fixed emphatic pattern; count it in the Torah (Gen 2:17, 20:7 and others) as a worked example of the infinitive absolute. ## For Mova - I1. The curse formula as a speech act: ארור + (2nd person or participle/noun) is a performative curse, as in the twelve ארור of Deut 27:15–26 and Gen 3:14, 4:11, 9:25. A `prag` rule giving act "curse" (and negative evaluation) to sentences headed by ארור, and בָּרוּךְ for "bless", measured on the Torah. I1 is a candidate rule in `tools/macula/src/prag.rs` (the act column; ארר is already in the negative-evaluation list) and a paragraph in [languages/hbo/09-discourse.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/09-discourse/) (performatives). I2 is a count for `06-verb.md` (infinitives). The epigraphic claims themselves give nothing to the tools: Mova reads the Masoretic text, not inscriptions. ## Institutions [🎓**Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz** Mainz · Germany 3 works · 662 citations](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/johannes-gutenberg-university-mainz/) · [🎓**University of Haifa** Haifa · Israel 21 works · 427 citations](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-haifa/) Also on the byline: [Czech Academy of Sciences](https://ror.org/053avzc18) · [Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics](https://ror.org/01hxbnq19) · [The Bible Seminary](https://ror.org/044b87t53). Topics[Machine translation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/machine-translation/) · [Hebrew & Aramaic](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/hebrew-aramaic/) · [Semitic languages](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/semitic-languages/) ## Cite Cite as Scott Stripling, Gershon Galil, Ivana Kumpová, Jaroslav Valach, Pieter Gert van der Veen and Daniel Vavřı́k. 2023. "You are Cursed by the God YHW": an early Hebrew inscription from Mt. Ebal. Heritage Science. The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9](https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9) ```bibtex @inproceedings{stripling2023you, title = {{"You are Cursed by the God YHW": an early Hebrew inscription from Mt. Ebal}}, author = {Scott Stripling, Gershon Galil, Ivana Kumpová, Jaroslav Valach, Pieter Gert {van der Veen} and Daniel Vavřı́k}, booktitle = {Heritage Science}, year = {2023}, doi = {10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9} } ``` - [← previous When to generate hedges in peer-tutoring interactions](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/abulimiti-2023-when-generate-hedges-peer-tutoring/) - [next → An ensemble-based framework for mispronunciation detection of Arabic phonemes](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/calik-2023-ensemble-based-framework-mispronunciation-detection/) - [↑ back to papers of 2023](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2023/page/7/)