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Re: orion Orion ostracon scans



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dwashbur@nyx.net wrote:

> For a limited time I have put my scans and enhancements of the Qumran
> ostracon photo in IEJ on a web page so others can check them out and
> perhaps do a better job of enhancing than I can.  The files are big -
> all over a megabyte - and there are 4 of them.  The original scans in
> two-color bitmap format are the first two links on the page and are
> named ost1.bmp and ost2.bmp.  The enhanced views I created center on
> lines 4 and 8 and are in .gif format.  These are line4.gif and
> line8.gif.
>

    Many thanks to Dave Washburn  for making the photos and enhancements

of Ostracon I available online.  Fully admitting  my amateur's eye as
far
less experienced and knowledgeable as Drs Cross and Eshel, and with
all due respect to Stephen Goranson, I cannot see a yod nor make a chet
from what looks like every other aleph on the shard.  The partial letter

of the lacuna of line 8 seems consistent with the right stroke junction
and
"ear" of other chets on the shard but a het, daleth or zayin cannot be
ruled out.

    As a non-scholar, I don't want to be presumptious in the presence of
the
real experts, but for what it is worth, I see the "yachad" of line 8
being
either ln)h (house, pasture) or ln)d..h.. (bottle, wineskin).

    Having brazenly offered my layman's opinion, I have always had an
interest in ostraca from non-scribal hands as an indicator in the
ongoing
debates over Aramaic vs Hebrew priority in common usage and whether
there was regional preferences, i.e. more Hebrew used in the south while

Aramaic was more common in the north which is my present interpretation
of the epigraphic evidence.  Any opinions on this?

--
D’man dith laych idneh d’nishMA nishMA
   Jack Kilmon (jpman@accesscomm.net)


 http://users.accesscomm.net/scriptorium