Back in January, I listed the various Hebrew inscriptions according to date and in a series of posts (here, here, here, here, and here) discussed some of the implications of them.
The latest issue of BASOR arrived this week. Garfunkel, Golub, Miagav and Ganor mention that there are now six eleventh century inscriptions from the area of Israel.
This demonstrates how the accident of discovery impacts our reconstruction of history. By my count (which is subject to change) there are more eleventh century inscriptions known than there are tenth century ones.
What these new inscriptions mean is that the Israelite scribal apparatus dates about a century earlier than we previously thought.
It also shows that in certain areas it only takes a single find to completely change the subject.
