FIRST PURE FOOD LABELS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 672, 27 May 1914, Page 3

FIRST PURE FOOD LABELS.

FOUND IN RUINS OF KING AHAB'S PAIM.CE AND ARB 3,000 YEARS OLD. The first pure food labels in history and the first instance on record of keeping wines in a Government warehouse under seal have come to light, according to the New-York "Bakers' Weekly," with the discovery by Prof. George A. Reisner, of Harvard, of the earliest specimens of Hebrew writings in the excavations of the ancient city of Samaria, in Palestine. Dating back to the period of King Ahab, fully 900 8.C., these inscriptions are to be considered one of the greatest finds of the Harvard Palestine expedition. The importance of these new inscriptions to the archaeologist is such that they promise to bring about a revision of scientific opinion as to the form of early Hebrew writings, and will set at rest doubts that have been raised for a score 01 years as to how early the scribes used the Phoenician letters lroni which the alphabet was derived. Professor David G. Lyon, head of the Harvard Semitic Museum, pronounces these inscriptions to be the earliest specimens of Hebrew writings known, and "the first- Palestine records of this nature to be I'ound." These inscriptions which were excavated are labels which were employed as seals on wine and oil jars. They mention the years in which the wine was laid down in the cellars of the palace storehouse, and they state the vineyard from which the wine came. On the oil jars the labels run. "A Jar of Pure Oil," with the mention of the district from which oil came.

These labels, about seventy-five in number, have been dug up on the rains of the storehouse attached to the Palace of King Ahab some 3000 years ago, and the names of the owners as given indicate that not only the King himself, but other men have stored their wines and oils there.

Professor Lyon says—'"The script in which they are written is the Phoenician, which was widely current in antiquity. It is very different from the so-called square characters in which the existing Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible are written, dating far ahead of that time. The inscriptions are written in ink with a reed pen in an easy, flowing hand, and show a pleasing contrast to the stiff form of Phoenician inscriptions cut in stone."