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Stephen,
You wrote:
'Briefly, and relevantly on "falsification," George Athas' careful physical observations on the Tel Dan Aramaic inscription, if true as stated, falsify your asserted scenario in which a putative forger carved a dalet in the direction of a putative already-broken stone edge and stopped before the break, in part, because the dalet does not stop before the break, so falsifying your stated forgery claim. (Beyond other reasons to see the inscription as genuine.)'
While there are indeed arguments on both sides, the direction of the dalet has no bearing on the unresolved question of the Tel Dan Inscription's authenticity. You apparently did not follow the course of the discussion carefully, for I fully addressed this issue on 2/24/2005 on ANE in response to George Athas' comment on the direction of the strokes forming the anomalously shaped dalet.
"I see your point with respect to the second dalet of HDD. Instead of the two arms forming the triangle starting at the stem of the dalet and stopping short of the rock break, right-to-left, they start just inside the rock break and meet the stem, left-to-right. As I would describe it, the starting point of each arm forms a sort of dimple or crater, the leftmost rim of the crater touching or adjacent to the rock break, and the center point of the crater within the inscription area itself. The anomalous letter shape and the position of the start (not end) point of the arms within the inscription area is still very troubling."
To make matters explicit for those on Megillot, the blunted shape of the dalet of the second dalet in HDD is anomalous - the point of its "nose" should have been beyond the rock break. Instead, it starts within the inscription area (the start of each arm perhaps barely touching the edge of the rock break, as I describe above). This suggests that a modern forger might conceivably have inscribed the dalet on an already broken rock, starting (not ending) the dalet within the polished inscription area.
That said, I would request that you kindly discontinue such misleading descriptions as "your asserted scenario" and "your stated forgery claim." As you realize, such descriptions are inaccurate, since I only raise the possibility of the Tel Dan Inscription being a forgery, based on the anomalous dalet as well as other troubling features, and call for further scientific study of the inscription to resolve the issues I raise (which George Athas is quite supportive of). Since recent discussions took place on ANE (not Megillot), readers here do not have the benefit of the original - and quite amicable - postings between George Athas and myself, and should not have to rely on your filtered and misleading reporting. Such being the case, I hope my posting is the last on this topic, or, failing that, that the moderator would step in and terminate this thread, which is clearly better suited to ANE (as I have stated many times).
Best regards,
Russell Gmirkin
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