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Courtesy of Aren Maeir

Two names scratched onto a small sherd of pottery are all that appear in the oldest Philistine inscription ever found. Though the names are Philistine—the one on the right may be the equivalent of Goliath—the letters themselves are Semitic, thus demonstrating that the Philistines (a sea-faring people from the Aegean) absorbed aspects of Semitic culture once they settled on the coast of modern Israel.