Ancient ivory comb Credit: Dafna Gazit, Israel Antiquities Authority
The Hebrew University has found a 1700 BC ivory comb with a petition to get rid of lice. The inscription reads: [ivory] Fangs uproot lice in the hair and beard.
The alphabet was developed around 1800 BC and used by the Canaanites, and later in many other languages around the world. Until recently, very few Canaanite inscriptions have been found in the land of Israel, with only a few isolated words. However, this changed when recent discoveries revealed that entire Canaanite sentences were carved into small ivory combs. Dating to around 1700 BC, this text contains a spell against lice.
A small ivory comb containing an entire Canaanite sentence dating to around 1700 BC was discovered in Tell Lachish, Israel, by a team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Southern Adventist University. The team was led by his Yosef Garfinkel, Michael Hasel and Prof. Martin Klingbeil. The comb inscription was deciphered by Dr. Daniel Weinstub, a Semitic epigrapher at Ben-Gurion University. This ivory was examined by Professor Rivka Rabinovich and his Professor Yuval Goren and found to be derived from elephant tusks. The team’s findings Jerusalem Archaeological Journal.
Aerial view of Tell Lakish. Credit: Emil Aladjem
The inscription is very shallowly engraved. It was excavated in 2017, but letters were only discovered later in 2022 when it was post-processed by Dr. Madeleine Mumcuoglu. Cleaned and preserved by Miriam Lavie.
Professor Joseph Garfinkel, Hebrew University.Credit: Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Ivory combs are small, measuring about 3.5 x 2.5 cm. The comb has teeth on both sides. Their bases are still visible, but the comb teeth themselves were broken in ancient times. The central part of the comb has been eroded somewhat, perhaps by the pressure of the fingers holding the comb during hair care, or by removing lice from the head or beard. Used for detangling, the other side with 14 fine teeth was used to remove lice and their eggs. shop.
There are 17 Canaanite letters on the comb. They have an archaic shape from the earliest stages of the invention of the letters of the alphabet. They form seven words in Canaanite, which read, “May this fang eradicate the hair lice and the beard.”
“This is the first sentence found in Canaanite in Israel. There were Canaanites in Ugarit in Syria, but they wrote in a different script than the alphabet used today. Canaanites The city is mentioned in Egyptian texts, the Akkadian letter of Amarna, and the Hebrew Bible, and the comb inscription is direct evidence of the alphabet’s use in everyday life about 3,700 years ago. This is a milestone in the history of human writing,” said Garfinkel.
Ancient combs were made of wood, bone, or ivory. Ivory was a very expensive material, probably an imported luxury item. There were no elephants in Canaan at that time, so the comb likely came from nearby Egypt, indicating that even people of high social status suffered from lice.
The research team analyzed the comb itself for the presence of lice under a microscope and photographed both sides. Remains of head lice, 0.5–0.6 mm in size, were found on her second tooth. However, the Lachish climatic conditions could not preserve the whole head lice, but only the outer chitin membrane of the nymph stage head lice.
Despite their small size, the Lachish comb inscriptions have very special features, some of which are unique, and fill gaps in our knowledge of many aspects of Canaanite culture in the Bronze Age. For the first time, we have an entire oral text written in the dialect spoken by the Canaanite inhabitants of Lachish, allowing us to compare this language in every aspect with other sources. Second, the inscription on the comb sheds light on hitherto poorly documented aspects of daily life, hair care, and the treatment of lice at the time.
Thirdly, this is the first find in the area of inscriptions that refer to the purpose of the object for which it was written, as opposed to the object’s consecration or ownership inscription. Moreover, the skill of sculptors to successfully create such small characters (1–3 mm wide) is a fact that must be taken into account in the future to summarize and draw conclusions about the literacy of Bronze Age Canaan. .
Lachish was a major Canaanite city-state in the second millennium BC and the second most important city in the biblical kingdom of Judah. To date, 10 Canaanite inscriptions have been found at Lachish, more than at any other site in Israel. The city was a center for the use and preservation of the alphabet for nearly 600 years, from 1800 to 1150 BC. The Tell Lakish site is under the protection of the Israel Nature Parks Authority.
See also: “The Canaanite Desire to Eradicate Lice with an Ivory Comb Carved from Lachish” by Daniel Weinstub, Madeleine Mumkoglu, Michael G. Hassel, Katherine M. Hessler, Miriam Ravi, Rivka Rabinovich, Yuval Goren, Joseph Garfinkel, 2022 Jerusalem Archaeological Journal.
DOI: 10.52486/01.00002.4
