title: Algorithmic handwriting analysis of Judah's military correspondence sheds light on composition of biblical texts.
abstract: The relationship between the expansion of literacy in Judah and composition of biblical texts has attracted scholarly attention for over a century. Information on this issue can be deduced from Hebrew inscriptions from the final phase of the first Temple period. We report our investigation of 16 inscriptions from the Judahite desert fortress of Arad, dated ca 600 BCE-the eve of Nebuchadnezzar's destruction of Jerusalem. The inquiry is based on new methods for image processing and document analysis, as well as machine learning algorithms. These techniques enable identification of the minimal number of authors in a given group of inscriptions. Our algorithmic analysis, complemented by the textual information, reveals a minimum of six authors within the examined inscriptions. The results indicate that in this remote fort literacy had spread throughout the military hierarchy, down to the quartermaster and probably even below that rank. This implies that an educational infrastructure that could support the composition of literary texts in Judah already existed before the destruction of the first Temple. A similar level of literacy in this area is attested again only 400 y later, ca 200 BCE.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Mathematics, Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel; shirafaigen@gmail.com ashaus@post.tau.ac.il baraksov@post.tau.ac.il.
authors.forename: Shira
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Faigenbaum-Golovin
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Mathematics, Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel; shirafaigen@gmail.com ashaus@post.tau.ac.il baraksov@post.tau.ac.il.
authors.forename: Arie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shaus
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Mathematics, Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel; shirafaigen@gmail.com ashaus@post.tau.ac.il baraksov@post.tau.ac.il.
authors.forename: Barak
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sober
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Mathematics, Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel;
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Levin
authors.affiliation: Department of Jewish History, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel;
authors.forename: Nadav
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Na'aman
authors.affiliation: Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel;
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sass
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Mathematics, Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel;
authors.forename: Eli
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Turkel
authors.affiliation: School of Physics and Astronomy, Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
authors.forename: Eli
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Piasetzky
authors.affiliation: Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel;
authors.forename: Israel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Finkelstein
keywords: Arad ostraca; biblical exegesis; document analysis; literacy level; machine learning