Abstract
The chapter in a book devoted to the Moabite stela of Mesha summarizes the use of the paleo-Hebrew script in the second half of the 1st millennium BCE, until the Roman period. In the Iron Age, the paleo-Hebrew script was used in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah for records in Hebrew language.
The linguistic situation in both territories changed in consequence of their occupation by their annexation by the great empires of antiquity and their subsequent inclusion in their administrative systems. Thus, Israel was conquered by the Assyrian army in the late 8th century, and the Judaean kingdom by the Babylonians in the 6th century BCE.
From the late 8th century BCE, the imperial administrations of the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian empires used for their records the Aramaic script and the Aramaic language. The importance of the local Hebrew script and language diminished, but it did not disappear and continued to be used for some types of records together with Aramaic even in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman periods.
Its later use in the Byzantine and later periods is well attested by the Samaritan community.