Deir Alla Inscription

A text written in ink on plastered wall fragments in the Jordan Valley, discovered collapsed on the floor of a room destroyed by earthquake. It opens by describing "Balaam son of Beor, a seer of the gods," who receives a terrifying night vision of divine judgment and reports it weeping to his people. The language is Aramaic or a closely related dialect, and the religious world it depicts is polytheistic, with a council of gods and a goddess figure. It is the only case of a named biblical prophet appearing in an independent contemporary inscription, showing that Balaam was a genuine regional tradition rather than a purely biblical invention.