Wikipedia's first sentence called it “archaeological tomb-site”. Today it says “archaeological site in the village of al-kum”. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “Archaeological site in the territory of the biblical kingdom of Judah, between Lachish and Hebron”. It now reads “Archaeological site in the West Bank”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2020 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2020
Khirbet el-Qom (or: al-Kum) is an archaeological site from the West Bank , in the territory of the biblical kingdom of Judah , between Lachish and Hebron , 14 km to the west of the latter.1A cache of 1,700 ostraca in Aramaic was found there, dating from the Persian and Hellenistic periods , during which the area was classified as the Persian province of Idumea, with a mixed population of North Arabs, Edomites and Jews. The site is called Maqqedah in the Idumean ostraca . Based on this, some scholars identify Kh. el-Qom with biblical Makkedah ( Joshua 10:10, 16, 17, 21, 28, 29; 12:16; 15:41 with invalid book ). The site contains two tombs. The tombs were investigated by William Dever in 1967 following their discovery by tomb-robbers and following the earlier discoveries of Asherah-relating inscriptions at Kuntillet Ajrud . The inscription from Tomb 2 is associated with a " magic hand " symbol, and reads: "Uriyahu the honourable has written this Blessed is/be Uriyahu by Yahweh And [because?] from his oppressors by his asherah he has saved him [written] by Oniyahu" "...by his asherah ...and his asherah" The inscriptions date from the second half of the 8th century BCE, slightly after the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions. Unlike the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions, they do not include a place-name with the name of Yahweh (the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions talk of "Yahweh of Samaria" and "Yahweh of Teman"); this seems to indicate that they were written after the fall of Samaria, which left Yahweh as the god of one state only. Graf, 'Petra and the Nabataeans in the Early Hellenistic Period: the literary and archaeological evidence,' in Michel Mouton,Stephan G.2
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 786590018.
The opening as it stood in 2015
Khirbet el-Qom (or: al-Kum) is an archaeological tomb-site (two tombs) in the territory of the biblical kingdom of Judah , between Lachish and Hebron , containing an inscription with the phrase "...by his Asherah ". The tombs were investigated by William Dever in 1967 following their discovery by tomb-robbers and following the earlier discoveries of Asherah-relating inscriptions at Kuntillet Ajrud . The inscription from Tomb 2 is associated with a " magic hand " symbol, and reads: "Uriyahu the honourable has written this Blessed is/be Uriyahu by Yahweh And [because?] from his oppressors by his asherah he has saved him [written] by Oniyahu" "...by his asherah ...and his asherah" The inscriptions date from the second half of the 8th century BCE, slightly after the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions. Unlike the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions, they do not include a place-name with the name of Yahweh (the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions talk of "Yahweh of Samaria" and "Yahweh of Teman"); this seems to indicate that they were written after the fall of Samaria, which left Yahweh as the god of one state only.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 545956952.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 8 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Archaeological site in the territory of the biblical kingdom of Judah, between Lachish and Hebron Khirbet el-Qom ( ) is an archaeological site in the village of al-Kum , West Bank , in the territory of the biblical Kingdom of Judah , between Lachish and Hebron , 14 km to the west of the latter.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1170173627.
The opening as it stood in 2025
Archaeological site in the territory of the biblical kingdom of Judah, between Lachish and Hebron Khirbet el-Qom ( Arabic : خربة الكوم ) is an archaeological site in the village of al-Kum , West Bank , in the territory of the biblical Kingdom of Judah , between Lachish and Hebron , 14 km (8.7 mi) to the west of the latter. Remains from the site dating to the Second Temple period include hundreds of Aramaic ostraca, what appears to be a 4th-century BCE shrine dedicated to Yahweh , and a burial cave featuring Hebrew inscriptions dating from the 1st century BCE to the 2nd century CE.Jews and Samaritans: the origins and history of their early relations .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1292250205. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “archaeological tomb-site”. Today it says “archaeological site in the village of al-kum”. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “Archaeological site in the territory of the biblical kingdom of Judah, between Lachish and Hebron”. It now reads “Archaeological site in the West Bank”. Read the current article and compare.
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2015, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
archaeological tomb-site
Now
archaeological site in the village of al-kum
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
