The
ostracon displays a series of incisions in the pottery that have been suggested to be an early type of
Bronze Age writing. The text has been compared to
Byblian pseudo-hieroglyphic, but also
Minoan Linear A and
Linear B,
Anatolian,
Canaanite and various other old languages. It is regarded as a rare trace of early written communication and important for further academic investigation. The pottery sherd shows a badly defined row of symbols in what some consider to be an abstract linear rather than pictographic form of character. It has not been reliably dated however suggestions have been made of or earlier. It has a double rope moulding that is similar to other Middle Bronze Age pottery from the
Euphrates valley area of
Syria. Dr. Cherie J. Lenzen has also suggested similar features were noted on pottery found at
Tell Irbid in northern
Jordan. Despite calls for dismissal or denial of the sherd as a "by-form" of the alphabet by
Frank M. Cross, Mendenhall has said that the sherd "clearly exhibits both the
dâl and the
thâ of later Eastern alphabets". He states "the sherd is perhaps older than any other
alphabetic inscription so far discovered". ==References==