Abstract
Resituating Scribal Activity during the Iron I–IIA Transition Sarah Malena Epigraphic discoveries have made the last decade very exciting for those interested in the development of linear alphabetic scripts and the emergence of Iron Age states in the southern Levant. Excavations throughout the region have yielded new inscriptions from the transition between the Iron I and IIA periods (or roughly the late eleventh and tenth centuries BCE) . With each new discovery, scholars race to propose the definitive reading or identify the missing link in our histories of the early Levantine kingdoms. My contribution to this wave of discovery has very little to do with paleography in the traditional sense of forms, stances, readings, and reconstructions. Rather, I am concerned with the historical and social contexts of the creation and possession of inscribed objects, viewing them as akin to other rare or luxury goods such as imported wares.