ancient Judaean horoscope text (?)

[StephenGoranson]

Woefully insufficiently informative report--e.g. found where and when?--but fwiw:

https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/03/14/ ... an-desert/

[DCHindley]

Woefully insufficiently informative report--e.g. found where and when?--but fwiw:

https://www.israelhayom.com/2024/03/14/ ... an-desert/

To pull an F M Cross 'Excuse me mr. presenter ... but isn't that the text from the Siloam inscription?' moment (in my own humble way), I think this is actually referring to 4Q186:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qumran_%2 ... 22_(4Q186)

Allegro 1968. DJD 5: 88-91.

DCH

[StephenGoranson]

Yes. Not newly "announced this week."

[DCHindley]

Yes. Not newly "announced this week."

My ears perked up when they described writing from left to right rather than the other way around, considering the forgeries brought up recently where the Siloam inscription was written out left to right.

IIRC, 4Q186 used a couple of cypher techniques, the other, I believe, being atbash. Allegro and others did not linger too long at this, as the solution was fairly easy to crack. In college I once bought a used copy of a tiny paperback on "Codes & Cyphers" that discussed several common "low tech" ways to keep prying eyes from something private, including same type techniques. Interesting!

I suppose that might suggest that left to right alone is not a reliable indicator of fraud. It does suggest that someone was trying to keep something from others, though. Forgers do that too.

DCH

[StephenGoranson]

The junk article linked in the OP was so misleading that I probably should not have posted it. My mistake.