Gezer Calendar, tenth-century BCE, limestone, Istanbul Archaeology Museum
The Gezer Calendar is an engraved section of a limestone tablet unearthed in the ancient Canaanite city of Gezer by R.A.S. Macalister in 1908. The inscription cites an annual cycle of the agricultural year. Starting with the month of Tishri the tablet describes monthly or bi-monthly periods and attributes to each a duty such as harvest, planting, or tending specific crops. The purpose of the calendar is not clear and many different explanations have been proposed. Scholars have speculated that the calendar could be a schoolboy's exercise or the lyrics of a song. Another possibility is a partial list related to the collection of taxes from farmers.