Arafat is rolling in his grave
I’m pretty sure it was Yasser Arafat who asserted that Jews had no connection to Israel in ancient times. How inconvenient for him that the earth keeps revealing reminders of precisely that connection:
Archaeologists digging on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives have discovered a nearly 3,000-year-old jar handle bearing ancient Hebrew script, a find significantly older than most inscribed artifacts unearthed in the ancient city, an archaeologist said. The Iron Age handle is inscribed with the Hebrew name Menachem, which was the name of an Israelite king and is still common among Jews.
The inscription also includes a partly intact letter, the Hebrew character “lamed,” meaning “to.” That suggests the jar was a gift to someone named Menachem, said Ron Beeri, who directed the excavation for the Israel Antiquities Authority. There is no indication the inscription refers to the king himself.
[snip]
Based on the style of the inscription, he dated the handle to around 900 B.C., the time of the first Jewish Temple in Jerusalem as recounted in the Bible.
