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Recent excavations in Ashdod have brought to light a small cache of clay tablets which have only recently been deciphered. They were encrypted, for reasons which will soon become apparent; but the code was relatively simple, and when broken revealed a correspondence which sheds fascinating light on some of the events found in the first book of Samuel. The complete edited correspondence will be published in several years' time; funds are at present being sought to facilitate this process. In the meantime, I am happy to present here, for the first time perhaps, the most interesting of the letters (provisionally codified as Ashd E1.3). Since this is a popular volume aimed at a general readership I have employed a fairly colloquial idiom throughout. For this I apologize to my scholarly colleagues, who may nevertheless rest assured that the gist of the matter is accurately represented.
The EditorFrom:
Shmu'el ben Elkanah
Director of State Security
Special Adviser to King Sha'ul
Benjamite Kingdom of Israel
Gibeah
To:
Achish ben Abiathar
Lord High Seren
Supreme Commander
United Philistine States
Ashdod
Greetings!
Your Excellency, I am instructed on behalf of his majesty king Sha'ul ben Kish ben Abiel to deny in the strongest possible terms rumours which have emanated from UPS sources in recent days suggesting that the Benjamite Kingdom of Israel is in possession of weapons banned under the Levantine Accord to which we both, along with the Hittite Lands and the Twin Kingdoms of Egypt, are signatories.
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