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Archaeological Researches in Palestine During the Years 1873 - 1874 [pages 381-419]

"Charles Clermont-Ganneau was in the French Diplomatic Corps. He discovered the Moabite Stele¹ dated to about 850 BC that is currently in the Louvre Museum, Paris. Charles was a skilled translator and a professor of Oriental Languages including Hebrew and ancient Aramaic. He toured Palestine from 1873-1874 studying the Semitic names of Arab villages comparing them to Biblical names with knowledge of the works of Byzantine scholars Eusebius and Jerome. Charles conducted excavations of tombs around Jerusalem. He explored the ridge that begins with Scopus in the north, to the Mt. of Olives in the middle, and the Mount of Offense south of the road from Jerusalem to Bethany. Charles discovered and published information about numerous first century Jewish ossuaries and ossuary inscriptions. He noted Jewish names were written on some of the ossuaries: Lazurus, Martha, Simon, and Jesus (Yah''shua). He also found the Greek word Iesous written twice on one of the ossuaries. This word means "God is Salvation" in Greek as derived from the Hebrew form Yah''shua (Joshua) meaning the same. English translators took the Greek form Iesous and wrote Jesous. The letter J changed from an I pronunciation to a hard J sound as time elapsed. There were crosses on some of the ossuaries. In 1899 a translation of Charles'' work was published in English. I was able to photograph part of a copy and place this on the internet."

Author(s):  Clermont-Ganneau, Charles Simon
Format:  Article
Publisher:  David Q. Hall
Date:  2006
Subject(s):