Bronze Age World

Review and provenance

Specialist reviewer: not recorded. Review date: not recorded.

Dataset workflow: proposed. This is separate from specialist review.

Confidence describes the stated assessment; it does not certify expert approval. How review works.

Chronology

Dating intervals may describe uncertainty or phases; their width alone does not establish event duration.

Alternative assertion

850 BCE–750 BCE

Precision: approximate century

Chronology model: late ninth or early eighth century

moderate

The plaster texts are usually placed around the late ninth or early eighth century; dialect and exact palaeographic date remain debated.

informs · dates
Aramaic Texts from Deir ‘Alla — Jacob Hoftijzer, Gerrit van der Kooij (1976)
Provides initial date.

Locator: archaeological context and palaeography
informs · critiques interpretation
The Balaam Text from Deir ‘Alla Re-evaluated — Gerrit van der Kooij, Jacob Hoftijzer (1991)
Provides alternatives.

Locator: re-evaluation

Research description

Fragmentary ink-on-plaster literary text naming Balaam son of Beor and divine beings. The text is evidence for its own date, genre, and reception; any event or identity inference is modeled separately.

Evidence and sources

informs · provides primary evidence
Aramaic Texts from Deir ‘Alla — Jacob Hoftijzer, Gerrit van der Kooij (1976)
Foundational edition.

Locator: text groups I-II; fragment and line reconstruction
informs · critiques interpretation
The Balaam Text from Deir ‘Alla Re-evaluated — Gerrit van der Kooij, Jacob Hoftijzer (1991)
Provides competing reconstructions.

Locator: re-evaluated readings and language discussion

Where to go next

Compare the four cities Explore causes and counter-evidence Explain a term or date

Referenced records

Southern Levant · entity