Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon

A five-line inked inscription on a broken jar found in a fortified city overlooking the Elah Valley, the biblical setting of the David and Goliath narrative. The script is proto-Canaanite and the reading is heavily disputed, but words for judging, serving, king, and the widow and orphan appear, suggesting a text about social justice or royal authority. The city itself is more significant than the sherd: it is a planned, casemate-walled settlement with two gates and no pig bones, dated by radiocarbon to around −1000. It is the central exhibit for those arguing that a centralized Judahite polity existed in David's era rather than a century or two later.