Overview
- The peer-reviewed paper by Eberhard Zangger, Daniel Sarlo and colleagues argues the imagery predates the Babylonian Enuma Elish by more than a thousand years.
- Engravings move from a serpent-governed chaos to two figures carrying a crescent 'boat of light' that bears the sun and moon, signifying ordered cosmos.
- The team rejects earlier Enuma Elish readings, emphasizing the absence of battle scenes and describing a non-violent birth of cosmic order.
- Motifs are compared with Göbekli Tepe and the Lidar Höyük prism, suggesting a very ancient, shared Near Eastern cosmogonic tradition.
- The 8-centimeter silver cup, unearthed in 1970 in a Judean Hills tomb, remains on display at the Israel Museum as scholars debate the new interpretation.