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Re: orion palaeography
Clarifications . . .
(1) There may be unusual circumstances on the De Vaux excavation
report, some missing materials, etc. and on the inscriptions apparently
Puech is at work on those and Puech has a track record of publishing,
so the situation is not all bad, just mostly bad. What would be
helpful would be interim reports of some kind . . . the Humbert and
Chambon publication of De Vaux's notes is outstanding . . . may there
be more of this with the rest of the stuff. On the pottery, if no
one is working on it, one wishes the lot was simply turned over to,
e.g. Magness who would get it published.
(2) On palaeography, a dated inscription at 81 BCE matching a Cross
estimated date of 50-25 BCE has to be considered a good call (on
Cross's part). The problem is not in Cross's 1961 effort as such
(to which all are indebted, for it was substantial), but rather in two
unfortunate side effects: first the freezing of the date estimates
with unrealistically precise date ranges and believing them, and
second, the naming of certain script types after
political periods, e.g. "Hasmonean" and "Herodian". This terminology
problem may have fatally affected the ability to think objectively
about absolute datings of script types. To DJD editors using these
terms, you heard on this list not long ago someone ask innocently,
"But how can Herodian scripts be pre-Herodian?" That is what this
misguided terminology tells the public. In fact there is no reason
at all in the data why scripts called by Cross "early Herodian" may
not be earlier in the 1st BCE than Herod the Great.
Greg Doudna