"Galil estimated that the carving was written in the middle of the tenth century BCE [aka BC], after King Solomon built the First Temple, his palaces, and the surrounding walls.... These tremendous infrastructural projects contributed, Galil said, to the sudden need for copious quantities of poor-quality wine.
“This wine was not served on the table of King Solomon nor in the Temple,” Galil wrote. “Rather it was probably used by the many forced laborers in the building projects and the soldiers that guarded them.
"Beyond that, Galil emphasized..., 'The ability to write and store the wine in a large vessel designated for this purpose, while noting the type of wine, the date it
was received, and the place it was sent from, attests to the existence
of an organized administration that collected taxes, recruited laborers,
brought them to Jerusalem, and took care to give them food and water.
“'Scribes that could write administrative texts could also write literary and historiographic texts, and this has very important implications for the study of the Bible and understanding the history of Israel in the biblical period.'”
By Marissa Newman, December 31, 2013
Read more: Decoded: Jerusalem's oldest Hebrew engraving refers to lousy wine | The Times of Israel
