The following article challenges the widely held view that refugees wrote the inscriptions preserved on the tomb walls of Khirbet Beit Lei. We argue that the so-called “refugee-hypothesis” should be based upon a stronger methodological foundation and that the interpretation of the inscriptions at the site should give more serious consideration to their context in the space of a tomb. Toward this end, the article argues that the inscriptions should be connected to the funerary context in which they appear and that their content should be understood as relating to the larger function and materiality of the mortuary complex at Beit Lei. Rather than reconstructing a hypothetical scenario in which refugees stopped and inscribed “hymns” or “prayers” on the walls of the tomb, the article argues that the function of the inscriptions was largely semiotic and served to mark the boundary between the antechamber and bench rooms of the tomb complex.

下一篇文章挑战了人们普遍认为的观点，即难民在Khirbet Beit Lei墓墙上保留了铭文。我们认为，所谓的“难民假说”应建立在更强大的方法论基础上，对现场铭文的解释应更加认真地考虑其在墓穴中的背景。为此，本文认为，这些铭文应与它们出现的葬礼相关联，并且应将其内容理解为与贝特雷太平间建筑群的更大功能和重要性有关。与其构想一个假想的场景，在该场景中，难民停下来在墓穴的墙壁上写下“赞美诗”或“祈祷者”，