Graves, Caves, and Refugees: An Essay in Microhistory

Abstract

Building on previous interpretation of the graffiti from Khirbet Beit Lei, this article argues that a larger number of Iron Age graffiti found in graves and caves in Judah, or ostensibly from such, may be interpreted as expressions of refugees hiding from enemies. It explores the concerns, status, and situations of the refugees, correlating them with literary (biblical) texts reflecting similar language and concerns, or referring to people of similar status and in similar situations. The lapidary utterances, this article argues, give immediacy, while the literary expressions supply imaginative and aesthetic richness to the common concerns. Material, epigraphic, and literary sources from later centuries, and archaeological sources from much earlier, suggest that the historical experience of such refugees was perennial, indeed permillennial, in ancient Palestine.