(HAARETZ) — Some time in the Late Bronze Age, somebody seems to have had a beef against the governor of Jerusalem. Archaeologists have discovered a buried Canaanite temple that had been carved into the bedrock about 82 feet (25 meters) above Jerusalem’s Gihon Spring some 3,700 years ago. Inside it, they found a limestone slab that dates to a few centuries later, about 3,300 years ago.
On that slab was a curse against the governor of the city, sar ha-ir, written in 20 words of proto-Canaanite script (which is basically the same as proto-Sinaitic). The prose is beautifully preserved after all these years on the stone tablet, which measures 10.5 by 7.9 inches (26.7 by 20.8 centimeters).
“Cursed, cursed, you will surely die;
Cursed, cursed, you will surely die;
Governor of the City, you will surely die;
Cursed, you will surely die;
Cursed, you will surely die;
Cursed, you will surely die.”
