Archaeology gives historians material evidence to set beside written sources. For the world of the Abrahamic scriptures, that evidence is rich in places and silent in others.
Inscriptions that name Israel
The Merneptah Stele, an Egyptian victory inscription from around 1208 BCE, contains the earliest known mention of a people called Israel. The Mesha Stele, a ninth-century BCE monument of a king of Moab, refers to Israel and its god. The Tel Dan inscription, found in northern Israel in the 1990s and dated to the ninth century BCE, contains a phrase that most scholars read as “House of David”, widely taken as the earliest reference to David’s dynasty outside the Bible.
The Second Temple period and early Christianity
Excavations in Jerusalem have uncovered streets, ritual baths and parts of the Temple Mount complex from the Herodian period. A stone found at Caesarea in 1961 bears the name of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor named in the Gospels. Discoveries such as these illuminate the world in which Judaism and the early Christian movement developed.
Early Islam
The inscriptions inside the Dome of the Rock, dated to the 690s, are among the earliest extensive Qur’anic texts in stone. Early Arabic rock inscriptions and papyri from the seventh century document the spread of Arabic writing and of Islamic administration.
The limits of the evidence
Archaeology cannot confirm or deny every narrative. No excavation has produced direct evidence of the patriarchs, and the absence of evidence may reflect what survives in the ground and what has been excavated. Scholars also disagree about how to interpret many finds. Archaeology is best read as one voice among several, alongside texts, languages and the living memory of the traditions.