Social:Proto-Sinaitic script
Proto-Sinaitic script | |
---|---|
![]() A specimen of Proto-Sinaitic script, the first published photograph of the script.[1] The line running from the upper left to lower right may read mt l bʿlt "... to the Lady" | |
Type | Abjad
|
Languages | Canaanite languages |
Time period | c. 19th–15th century BC |
Parent systems | Egyptian hieroglyphs
|
Child systems |
|
Direction | Mixed |
ISO 15924 | Psin, 103 |
Proto-Sinaitic (also referred to as Proto-Canaanite when found in Canaan,[2] or Early Alphabetic)[3] is found in a small corpus of about 40 inscriptions and fragments, the vast majority from Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai Peninsula,[4] dating to the Middle Bronze Age. They are considered the earliest trace of alphabetic writing and the common ancestor of both the Ancient South Arabian script and the Phoenician alphabet,[5] which led to many modern alphabets including the Greek alphabet.[6] According to common theory, Canaanites or Hyksos who spoke a Canaanite language[7] repurposed Egyptian hieroglyphs to construct a different script.[8]
The earliest Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions are mostly dated to between the mid-19th (early date) and the mid-16th (late date) century BC.
The principal debate is between an early date, around 1850 BC, and a late date, around 1550 BC. The choice of one or the other date decides whether it is proto-Sinaitic or proto-Canaanite, and by extension locates the invention of the alphabet in Egypt or Canaan respectively.[9]
However, the discovery of the two Wadi el-Hol inscriptions near the Nile River suggests that the script originated in Egypt. The evolution of Proto-Sinaitic and the small number of Proto-Canaanite inscriptions from the Bronze Age is based on rather scant epigraphic evidence; it is only with the Bronze Age collapse and the rise of new Semitic kingdoms in the Levant that Proto-Canaanite is clearly attested (Byblos inscriptions 10th–8th century BC, Khirbet Qeiyafa inscription c. 10th century BC).[10][11][12][13]
The first published group of Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions were discovered in the winter of 1904–1905 in Sinai by Hilda and Flinders Petrie. These ten inscriptions, plus an eleventh published by Raymond Weill in 1904 from the 1868 notes of Edward Henry Palmer,[14] were reviewed in detail, and numbered (as 345–355), by Alan Gardiner in 1916.[15] To this were added a number of short Proto-Canaanite inscriptions found in Canaan and dated to between the 17th and 15th centuries BC, and more recently, the discovery in 1999 of the two Wadi el-Hol inscriptions, found in Middle Egypt by John and Deborah Darnell. The Wadi el-Hol inscriptions strongly suggest a date of development of Proto-Sinaitic writing from the mid-19th to 18th centuries BC.[16][17]
Name
Proto-Canaanite, also referred to as Proto-Canaan, Old Canaanite, or Canaanite,[2] is the name given to the Proto-Sinaitic script (c. 16th century BC), when found in Canaan.[18][19][20][21]
Proto-Canaanite is also used when referring to the ancestor of the Phoenician or Paleo-Hebrew script, respectively, before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BC, with an undefined affinity to Proto-Sinaitic.[22]
While no extant inscription in the Phoenician alphabet is older than c. 1050 BC,[23] Proto-Canaanite is used for the early alphabets as used during the 13th and 12th centuries BC in Phoenicia.[7] However, the Phoenician, Hebrew, and other Canaanite dialects were largely indistinguishable before the 11th century BC, and the writing system is essentially identical.[13] A possible example of Proto-Canaanite, the inscription on the Ophel pithos, was found in 2012 on a pottery storage jar during the excavations of the south wall of the Temple Mount by Israeli archaeologist Eilat Mazar in Jerusalem. Inscribed on the pot are some big letters about an inch high, of which only five are complete, and traces of perhaps three additional letters written in Proto-Canaanite script.[19]
Discovery
Flinders Petrie, 1906, Researches in Sinai
In the winter of 1905, Flinders Petrie and his wife Hilda were conducting a series of archaeological excavations in the Sinai Peninsula. During a dig at Serabit el-Khadim, an extremely lucrative turquoise mine used between the Twelfth and Thirteenth Dynasty and again between the Eighteenth and mid-Twentieth Dynasty, Petrie discovered a series of inscriptions at the site's massive invocative temple to Hathor, as well as some fragmentary inscriptions in the mines themselves. Petrie immediately recognized hieroglyphic characters in the inscriptions, but upon closer inspection realized the script was wholly alphabetic and not the combination of logograms and syllabics as in Egyptian script proper. He thus assumed that the inscriptions showed a script that the turquoise miners had devised themselves, using linear signs that they had borrowed from hieroglyphics. He published his findings in London the following year.[25]
Ten years later, in 1916, Alan Gardiner, one of the premier Egyptologists of the early and mid-20th century, published his own interpretation of Petrie's findings, arguing that the glyphs appeared to be early versions of the signs used for later Semitic languages such as Phoenician, and was able to assign sound values and reconstructed names to some of the letters by assuming they represented what would later become the common Semitic abjad. One example was the character , to which Gardiner assigned the ⟨b⟩ sound, on the grounds that it derived from the Egyptian glyph for 'house' 17px|alt=, and was very similar to the Phoenician letter, 17px|alt= bet, whose name derives from the Semitic word for “house”, bayt. Using his hypothesis, Gardiner was able to affirm Petrie's hypothesis that the mystery inscriptions were of a religious nature, as his model allowed an often recurring word to be reconstructed as lbʿlt, meaning "to Ba'alat" or more accurately, "to (the) Lady" – that is, the "lady" Hathor. Likewise, this allowed another recurring word mʿhbʿlt to be translated as "Beloved of (the) Lady", a reading which became very acceptable after the lemma was found carved underneath a hieroglyphic inscription which read "Beloved of Hathor, Lady of Turquoise".[15] Gardiner's hypothesis allowed researchers to connect the letters of the inscriptions to modern Semitic alphabets, and resulted in the inscriptions becoming much more readable, leading to the immediate acceptance of his hypothesis.[citation needed]
Development
The letters of the earliest script used for Semitic languages were derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs. In the 19th century, the theory of Egyptian origin competed alongside other theories that the Phoenician script developed from Akkadian cuneiform, Cretan hieroglyphs, the Cypriot syllabary, and Anatolian hieroglyphs.[26] Then the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions were studied by Alan Gardiner who identified the word bʿlt "Lady" occurring several times in inscriptions, and also attempted to decipher other words. In the 1950s and 1960s, William Albright published interpretations of Proto-Sinaitic as the key to show the derivation of the Canaanite alphabet from hieratic.[8]
According to the "alphabet theory", the early Semitic proto-alphabet reflected in the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions would have given rise to both the Ancient South Arabian script and the Proto-Canaanite alphabet by the time of the Late Bronze Age collapse (1200–1150 BC).[7]
For example, the hieroglyph for pr "house" (a rectangle partially open along one side, "O1" in Gardiner's sign list) was adopted to write Semitic /b/, after the first consonant of baytu, the Semitic word for "house".[17][27]
A transitional stage between Proto-Canaanite and Old Phoenician (1000–800 BC) has been proposed by authors such as Werner Pichler as the origin of the Libyco-Berber script used among Ancient Libyans (i.e. Proto-Berbers) – citing common similarities to both Proto-Canaanite proper and its early North Arabian descendants.[28]
Inscriptions
Serabit inscriptions
The Sinai inscriptions are best known from carved graffiti and votive texts from a mountain in the Sinai called Serabit el-Khadim and its temple to the Egyptian goddess Hathor (ḥwt-ḥr). The mountain contained turquoise mines which were visited by repeated expeditions over 800 years. Many of the workers and officials were from the Nile Delta, and included large numbers of Canaanites (i.e. speakers of an early form of Northwest Semitic ancestral to the Canaanite languages of the Late Bronze Age) who had been allowed to settle the eastern Delta.[17]
Most of the forty or so inscriptions have been found among much more numerous hieratic and hieroglyphic inscriptions, scratched on rocks near and in the turquoise mines and along the roads leading to the temple.[29]
The date of the inscriptions is mostly placed in the 17th or 16th century BC.[30] An alternative view dates most of the inscriptions to the reign of Amenemhat III or his successor circa 1800 BC.[31]
Four inscriptions have been found in the temple, on two small human statues and on either side of a small stone sphinx. They are crudely done, suggesting that the workers who made them were illiterate apart from this script.
![](/wiki/images/thumb/7/71/Khirbet_Qeiyafa_Ostracon.jpg/200px-Khirbet_Qeiyafa_Ostracon.jpg)
Inscriptions in Canaan
Only a few inscriptions have been found in Canaan itself, dated to between the 17th and 15th centuries BC. They are all very short, most consisting of only a couple of letters, and may have been written by Canaanite caravaners or soldiers from Egypt.[17] They sometimes go by the name "Proto-Canaanite",[33] although the term "Proto-Canaanite" is also applied to early Phoenician or Ancient Hebrew writings.[11][12]
Wadi el-Hol inscriptions
The two Wadi el-Hol inscriptions (Arabic: وادي الهول Wādī al-Hawl 'Ravine of Terror') were carved on the stone sides of an ancient high-desert military and trade road linking Thebes and Abydos, in the heart of literate Egypt. They have been dated to somewhere between 1900 and 1800 BC.[34] They are in a wadi in the Qena bend of the Nile, at approx. [ ⚑ ] 25°57′N 32°25′E / 25.95°N 32.417°E, among dozens of hieratic and hieroglyphic inscriptions.[35] Rock inscriptions in the valley appear to show the oldest examples of phonetic alphabetic writing discovered to date.[17]
The inscriptions are graphically very similar to the Serabit inscriptions, but show a greater hieroglyphic influence, such as a glyph for a man that was apparently not read alphabetically:[17] The first of these (h1) is a figure of celebration [Gardiner A28], whereas the second (h2) is either that of a child [Gardiner A17] or of dancing [Gardiner A32]. If the latter, h1 and h2 may be graphic variants (such as two hieroglyphs both used to write the Canaanite word hillul "jubilation") rather than different consonants.
Brian Colless has published a translation of the text, in which some of the signs are treated as logograms (representing a whole word, not just a single consonant) or rebuses:
- [Vertical] mšt r h ʿnt ygš ʾl
- [Vertical] Excellent banquet (mšt r[ʾš]) of the celebration (h[illul]) of ʿAnat (ʿnt). [It] will provide (ygš) ʾEl (ʾl)
- [Horizontal] rb wn mn h ngṯ h ʾ p mẖ r
- [Horizontal] plenty (rb) of wine (wn) [and] victuals (mn) for the celebration (h[illul]). We will sacrifice (ngṯ) to her (h) an ox (ʾ [lp]) and (p) a prime fatling (mẖ r[ʾš])."
Here, aleph, whose glyph depicts the head of an ox, is a logogram used to represent the word "ox" (*ʾalp), he, whose glyph depicts a man in celebration, is a logogram for the words "celebration" (*hillul) and "she/her" (hiʾ), and resh, whose glyph depicts a man's head, is a logogram for the word "utmost/greatest" (*raʾš). This interpretation fits into the pattern in some of the surrounding Egyptian inscriptions, with celebrations for the goddess Hathor involving inebriation.[36]
Table
All the inscriptions published between 1916 and 1936 were given identification numbers following those of Gardiner's initial 1916 publication. Gardiner's numbers 1–344 were objects from Sinai with unrelated Egyptian inscriptions, so the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions numbering began at 345. Future scholars continued this numbering scheme for ease of reference.
Name | Object | Original location | Discovery | Publication | Current location | ID |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
345 | Sphinx | Serabit, Hathor temple | 1906, Petrie | 1916, Gardiner | British Museum | EA41748 |
346 | Statuette | Egyptian Museum | 38268 | |||
347 | Two sphinx heads | Art & History Museum (Brussels) | – | |||
348 | Unknown | Wadi Magharah | 1868, Palmer | 1904, Weill | Lost | – |
349 | Rock panel | Serabit, Mine L | 1906, Petrie | 1916, Gardiner | Egyptian Museum | 52511 |
350 | Rock panel | 51517 | ||||
351 | Rock panel | 52514 | ||||
352 | Rock panel | 52510 | ||||
353 | Rock panel | 51513 or 52515 | ||||
354 | Rock panel | 52510 (partly lost) | ||||
356 | Rock panel | 1927, Lake | 1928, Butin | 51513 or 52515 | ||
357 | Rock panel | In situ | ||||
358 | Serabit, Mine M | |||||
359 | Unknown | 1929, Hjelt | Egyptian Museum | 52516 | ||
360 | Slab | Ridge between Wadi Qattar and Wadi Umm Themeyim | 1930, Lake | 1932, Butin | – | |
361 | Small rock | Serabit, Mine N | – | |||
362 | Lozenge | Serabit, above Mine L | – | |||
363 | Serabit, south of Mine L | – | ||||
364 | Fragment | Serabit, in front of Mine M | – | |||
365 | palimpsest | Serabit, Egyptian camp | – | |||
367 | Rock panel | Serabit, south of Mine L | – | |||
374 | Serabit, Mine M | 1935, Lake | 1936, Butin | 65466 | ||
375 | 65467 | |||||
Gerster 1 | Wadi Nasb | Gerster | 1961, Leibovitch | In situ | ||
Gerster 2 | ||||||
Disputed (according to Albright): | ||||||
355 | 1906, Petrie | 1916, Gardiner | In situ | |||
366 | 1930, Lake | 1932, Butin | ||||
368 | ||||||
369 | Statuette | |||||
370 | ||||||
371 | ||||||
372 | ||||||
373 |
Synopsis
Below is a table synoptically showing selected Proto-Sinaitic signs and the proposed correspondences with Phoenician letters and Egyptian hieroglyphs. A full repertoire of the currently known letterforms can be found on pages 8 and 9 here: https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19299-revisiting-proto-sinaitic.pdf. Also shown are the sound values, names, and descendants of the Phoenician letters.[37]
Hieroglyph | Proto-Sinaitic | IPA value | Reconstructed name | Phoenician | Imperial Aramaic | Hebrew | Nabataean (from Aramaic) |
Arabic | Other* |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
<hiero>F1</hiero> 𓃾[38][39] | ![]() |
/ʔ/ | ʾalp "ox"[39][40] | ![]() |
![]() |
א | ![]() |
ا | 𐌀 A А |
<hiero>O1</hiero> 𓉐[38][39] | ![]() |
/b/ | bayt "house"[39] | ![]() |
![]() |
ב | ![]() |
ب | Β 𐌁 B В Б |
<hiero>T14</hiero> 𓌙[38][39] | ![]() |
/g/ | gaml "throw-stick" [40] | ![]() |
![]() |
ג | ![]() |
ج | ΓC G Г |
<hiero>O31</hiero> 𓉿[39] or <hiero>K5</hiero> 𓆟[38][lower-alpha 1] or <hiero>K7</hiero> 𓆡[38] | ![]() |
/d/ | dalt "door"[39] or digg "fish"[40] | ![]() |
![]() |
ד דּ | ![]() |
ﺩ | Δ 𐌃 D Д |
<hiero>A28</hiero> 𓀠[38][39] | ![]() |
/h/ | haw "man calling"[40] or hillul "jubilate"[39] | ![]() |
![]() |
ה | ![]() |
ه | Ε 𐌄 E Є Е |
<hiero>T2</hiero> 𓌈[38] or <hiero>T3</hiero> 𓌉[38] | ![]() |
/w/ | waw "mace"[40] or "hook"[39] | ![]() |
![]() |
ו | ![]() |
ﻭ | Ϝ Υ 𐌅 𐌖 F U W V Y Ѵ Ꙋ Ѹ У |
<hiero>Z4</hiero> 𓐅[38][lower-alpha 2] or <hiero>N34</hiero> 𓈔[41] or <hiero>V13</hiero> 𓍿[lower-alpha 3][lower-alpha 4] or <hiero>D13</hiero> 𓂃[39][lower-alpha 3] or <hiero>N16</hiero> 𓇾[38] | ![]() ![]() |
/z/ | zayn/zayt "sword"[citation needed] or "copper ingot"[41] or ziq "fetter"[39] | ![]() |
![]() |
ז | ![]() |
ﺯ | Z Z 𐌆 Ꙁ З |
/ð/ | ḏayp "eyebrow"[39] | ![]() |
ذ | ||||||
<hiero>O6</hiero> 𓉗[39][lower-alpha 3] or <hiero>O42</hiero> 𓊏 or <hiero>O31</hiero> 𓉿[38][lower-alpha 1] | ![]() ![]() |
/ħ/ | ḥaṣir "mansion"[39] or (ḥêt)"fence"[40] | ![]() |
![]() |
ח | ![]() |
ح | Η H 𐌇 И |
<hiero>V28</hiero> 𓎛[38][39][lower-alpha 5] | /x/ | (ḫa) "hank of yarn"[40] or ḫayt "thread"[39] | خ | ||||||
<hiero>F35</hiero> 𓄤[39] or <hiero>O49</hiero> 𓊖[lower-alpha 6] | / ![]() |
/tˤ/ | ṭab "good"[39] or ṭayt "spindle"[40] | ![]() |
![]() |
ט | ![]() |
ط | ![]() |
<hiero>D36</hiero> 𓂝[38][39] | ![]() ![]() |
/j/ | yad "arm"[40] or "hand"[39] | ![]() |
![]() |
י | ![]() |
ي | Ι 𐌉 I J І Ј |
<hiero>D46</hiero> 𓂧[38][39] | ![]() |
/k/ | kap(p) "palm"[40][39] | ![]() |
![]() |
ךכ | ![]() |
ك | Κ 𐌊 K К |
<hiero>S39</hiero> 𓋿[39] or <hiero>V1</hiero> 𓍢[38][lower-alpha 2] | ![]() |
/l/ | lamd "goad"[39][40] | ![]() |
![]() |
ל | ![]() |
ل | Λ 𐌋 L Л |
<hiero>N35</hiero> 𓈖[38][39] | ![]() |
/m/ | maym "water"[39] | ![]() |
![]() |
םמ | ![]() |
م | Μ 𐌌 M М |
<hiero>I10</hiero> 𓆓[38][39] | ![]() |
/n/ | naḥš "snake"[40][39] | ![]() |
![]() |
ןנ | ![]() |
ن | Ν 𐌍 N Н |
<hiero>R11</hiero> 𓊽 [39][lower-alpha 6] or <hiero>K1</hiero> 𓆛 [39][lower-alpha 1] | ![]() |
/s/ | samk "fish/support"[40][39] | ![]() |
![]() |
ס | ![]() |
― | Ξ 𐌎 Ѯ |
<hiero>D4</hiero> 𓁹[38][39] | ![]() |
/ʕ/ | ʿayn "eye"[40][39] | ![]() |
![]() |
ע | ![]() |
ع | Ο 𐌏 O О |
<hiero>V28</hiero> 𓎛[lower-alpha 5] or <hiero>M43</hiero> 𓇭[39][lower-alpha 3] | ![]() ![]() |
/ɣ/ | (ġa) (unknown)[40] or ġinab "grape"[39] | غ | 𐎙 | ||||
<hiero>D21</hiero> 𓂋[39] or <hiero>O38</hiero> 𓊋[38][lower-alpha 7] | /p/ | pu "mouth"[39] or pʿit "corner"[40] | ![]() |
![]() |
ףפ | ![]() |
ف | ![]() | |
<hiero>M22</hiero> 𓇑[38] or <hiero>V33</hiero> 𓎤[39][lower-alpha 3] or <hiero>M16</hiero> 𓇉[38] | ![]() |
/sˤ/ | (ṣad) "plant"[40] or ṣirar "bag"[39] | ![]() |
![]() ![]() |
ץצ | ![]() |
ص | ![]() |
/ɬˤ/? | ![]() |
ﺽ | |||||||
<hiero>S35</hiero> 𓋺[39] | ![]() |
/θˤ/ | ẓil "shade"[39] | ![]() |
ظ | ||||
<hiero>V24</hiero> 𓎗[39] | ![]() |
/kˤ/ | qu(p) "monkey"[40][43] or qaw "cord, line"[39] | ![]() |
![]() |
ק | ![]() |
ﻕ | ![]() ![]() |
<hiero>D1</hiero> 𓁶[38][39] or <hiero>D19</hiero> 𓂉[38] | ![]() |
/r/ | raʾš "head"[39][40] | ![]() |
![]() |
ר | ![]() |
ﺭ | ![]() |
<hiero>N6</hiero> 𓇴[39] | ![]() |
/ʃ/ | šamš "sun"[39] | ![]() |
![]() |
שׁ | ![]() |
س | Σ 𐌔 S С Ⱎ Ш
ሠ |
<hiero>T9</hiero> 𓌒[lower-alpha 4] or <hiero>Aa32</hiero> 𓐮[38] | ![]() ![]() |
/ɬ/? | ṯann "composite bow"[47][40] or ṯad "breast"[39] | שׂ | ش | ||||
/θ/ | ![]() |
שׁ | ![]() |
ث | |||||
<hiero>Z9</hiero> 𓏴[38] | ![]() |
/t/ | taw "mark"[40][39] | ![]() |
ת תּ | ﺕ | Τ 𐌕 T Т |
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 𓆛's name may be reconstructed as "digg," "nūn," or "samk." When both 𓉿 and 𓆛 are found within the same inscription, they are either thought to be the same allophone, or they are thought to be misinterpreted as 𓉗 or Samekh respectively.[citation needed]
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Glyph matches graphically, but not the reconstructed name.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Glyph matches reconstructed name, but not graphically.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 /ð/ seems to have merged with /z/ as part of Th-alveolarization. For the same or similar reason, the Phoenicians seem to have merged /θ/ with /ʃ/.[citation needed]
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 The Phoenicians seems to have merged 𓎛 with either 𓉗 or Ghayn.[citation needed] Ghayn, in turn, seems to have merged with 𓁹.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Glyph graphically matches the Phoenician glyph, but not the proto-sinaitic.
- ↑ The 16-character Wadi el-Hol inscription contains two different glyphs that resemble both 𓂋 and 𓊋. Additionally, both glyphs may be mistaken for 𓁹 and 𓌙 respectively.[citation needed]
- ↑ Greek letter Koppa may be ancestral to Greek letter Phi as they match graphically,[44] or they may have been developed independently as they are otherwise unrelated in both phonetic value and alphabetic positioning.[45] This uncertainty is why phi is left off the synoptic table.
- The Other section shows the corresponding Modern Greek, Etruscan, Latin, Glagolitic, Old Cyrillic, and Cyrillic letters.
See also
- Tell es-Safi inscription
- Ugaritic alphabet
References
- ↑ Petrie & Currelly 1906, p. 130.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Garfinkel, Yosef; Golub, Mitka R.; Misgav, Haggai; Ganor, Saar (May 2015). "The ʾIšbaʿal Inscription from Khirbet Qeiyafa". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 373 (373): 217–233. doi:10.5615/bullamerschoorie.373.0217.
- ↑ Rollston, C. (2020). The Emergence of Alphabetic Scripts. In R. Hasselbach-Andee (Ed.), A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages (1st ed., pp. 65–81). Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781119193814.ch4
- ↑ Simons 2011, p. 16: "The proto-Sinaitic corpus consists of approximately forty inscriptions and fragments, the vast majority of which were found at Serabit el-Khadim"
- ↑ "Sinaitic inscriptions | ancient writing". Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sinaitic-inscriptions. Retrieved 2019-08-21.
- ↑ The Development of the Greek Alphabet within the Chronology of the ANE (2009), Quote: "Naveh gives four major reasons why it is universally agreed that the Greek alphabet was developed from an early Phoenician alphabet.
- According to Herodutous "the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus... brought into Hellas the alphabet, which had hitherto been unknown, as I think, to the Greeks."
- The Greek Letters, alpha, beta, gimmel have no meaning in Greek but the meaning of most of their Semitic equivalents is known. For example, 'aleph' means 'ox', 'bet' means 'house' and 'gimmel' means 'throw stick'.
- Early Greek letters are very similar and sometimes identical to the West Semitic letters.
- The letter sequence between the Semitic and Greek alphabets is identical. (Naveh 1982)"
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 John F. Healey, The Early Alphabet University of California Press, 1990, ISBN:978-0-520-07309-8, p. 18.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Albright 1966.
- ↑ Simons 2011, p. 24.
- ↑ Coulmas (1989) p. 141.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Earliest Known Hebrew Text in Proto-Canaanite Script Discovered in Area Where 'David Slew Goliath'". Science Daily. November 3, 2008. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081103091035.htm.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Most ancient Hebrew biblical inscription deciphered". University of Haifa. January 10, 2010. http://newmedia-eng.haifa.ac.il/?p=2043.
- ↑ Weill, R. (1904) (in fr). Recueil des inscriptions égyptiennes du Sinaī: bibliographie, texte, traduction et commentaire, précédé de la géographie des établissements égyptiens de la péninsule. Société nouvelle de librairie et d'édition. p. 154. https://archive.org/details/Weill_1904/page/n84/mode/1up. Retrieved 2023-08-08.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Gardiner 1916, p. 1-16.
- ↑ Simons 2011, p. 24; quote: "The two latest discoveries, those found in the Wadi el-Hol, north of Luxor, in Egypt's western desert, can be dated with rather more certainty than the others and offer compelling evidence that the early date [1850 BC] is the more likely of the two"
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 17.5 Goldwasser, Orly (Mar–Apr 2010). "How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs". Biblical Archaeology Review (Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society) 36 (1). ISSN 0098-9444. http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=02&ArticleID=06. Retrieved 6 Nov 2011.
- ↑ Woodard, Roger (2008), The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Ngo, Robin (5 May 2017). "Precursor to Paleo-Hebrew Script Discovered in Jerusalem". Biblical Archaeology Society. http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/inscriptions/precursor-to-the-paleo-hebrew-script-discovered-in-jerusalem/.
- ↑ Gideon Tsur on the Proto-Canaanite text discovered at Keifa (Hebrew)
- ↑ Milstein, Mati (5 February 2007). "Ancient Semitic Snake Spells Deciphered in Egyptian Pyramid". news.nationalgeographic.com. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070205-snake-spells.html.
- ↑ Coulmas, Florian (1996). The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-21481-X.
- ↑ Hoffman, Joel M. (2004). In the beginning: a short history of the Hebrew language. New York, NY [u.a.]: New York Univ. Press. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-8147-3654-8. https://books.google.com/books?id=Pj0TCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA23. Retrieved 23 May 2017. "By 1000 B.C.E., however, we see Phoenician writings [..]"
- ↑ Petrie & Currelly 1906, p. 131-132.
- ↑ Petrie & Currelly 1906.
- ↑
- ↑ This is in marked contrast to the history of adoption of the Phoenician alphabet in the Iron Age (where ʾālep gave rise to the Greek letter aleph, i.e. the Semitic term for "ox" was left untranslated and adopted as simply the name of the letter).
- ↑ Picker, Werner (2007) (in en). Origin and development of the Libyco-Berber. Köln: Rüdiger Koppel Verlag. ISBN 978-3-89645-394-5. https://ebin.pub/origin-and-development-of-the-libyco-berber-script-9783896453945-3896453947.html. Retrieved 2022-04-16.
- ↑ "The proto-Sinaitic corpus consists of approximately forty inscriptions and fragments, the vast majority of which were found at Serabit el-Khadim" (Simons 2011:16).
- ↑ Goldwasser (2010): "The alphabet was invented in this way by Canaanites at Serabit in the Middle Bronze Age, in the middle of the 19th century B.C.E., probably during the reign of Amenemhet III of the XIIth Dynasty."
- ↑ Wilson-Wright, Aren Max. “Sinai 357: A Northwest Semitic Votive Inscription to Teššob.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 136, no. 2, 2016, pp. 247–63
- ↑ Sass, B., Garfinkel, Y., Hasel, M. G., & Klingbeil, M. G. (2015). The Lachish Jar Sherd: An Early Alphabetic Inscription Discovered in 2014. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 374, 233–245. https://doi.org/10.5615/bullamerschoorie.374.0233
- ↑ Roger D. Woodard, 2008, The Origins of the West Semitic Alphabet in Egyptian Scripts
- ↑ "Discovery of Egyptian Inscriptions Indicates an Earlier Date for Origin of the Alphabet". https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/111499sci-alphabet-origin.html.
- ↑ Baker, Dorie (13 December 1999). "Finding sheds new light on the alphabet's origins". http://archives.news.yale.edu/v28.n16/story4.html.
- ↑ https://repositorio.uca.edu.ar/bitstream/123456789/6753/1/proto-alphabetic-inscriptions-wadi-arabah.pdf Antiguo Oriente vol. 8 (2010) p. 91 Note: The 'y' appears in the Colless article p. 95, but not in the Wikimedia Commons trace image inscr1.jpg
- ↑ See also: Simons (2011),
- Figure Three: "Chart of all early proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 39),
- Figure Four: "Representative selection of later proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to early proto-Canaanite and proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 40).
- ↑ 38.00 38.01 38.02 38.03 38.04 38.05 38.06 38.07 38.08 38.09 38.10 38.11 38.12 38.13 38.14 38.15 38.16 38.17 38.18 38.19 38.20 38.21 38.22 38.23 38.24 Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2.
- ↑ 39.00 39.01 39.02 39.03 39.04 39.05 39.06 39.07 39.08 39.09 39.10 39.11 39.12 39.13 39.14 39.15 39.16 39.17 39.18 39.19 39.20 39.21 39.22 39.23 39.24 39.25 39.26 39.27 39.28 39.29 39.30 39.31 39.32 39.33 39.34 39.35 39.36 39.37 39.38 39.39 39.40 39.41 39.42 39.43 39.44 39.45 39.46 39.47 39.48 39.49 Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5.
- ↑ 40.00 40.01 40.02 40.03 40.04 40.05 40.06 40.07 40.08 40.09 40.10 40.11 40.12 40.13 40.14 40.15 40.16 40.17 40.18 40.19 40.20 Albright 1966, fig. 1.
- ↑ 41.0 41.1 Cross, F. M. (1980) Newly Found Inscriptions in Old Canaanite and Early Phoenician Scripts. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 238, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.2307/1356511
- ↑ 42.0 42.1 42.2 42.3 "Aramaic and Hebrew: A linguistic comparison". https://vocab.chat/blog/aramaic-and-hebrew.html#:~:text=One%20pattern%20in%20the%20differences,Aramaic%20and%20%C2%AB%20%D7%96%D6%B8%D7%94%D6%B8%D7%91%20%C2%BB%20in%20Hebrew.
- ↑ Pandey, Anshuman (30 July 2019). "Revisiting the Encoding of Proto Sinaitic in Unicode". https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19299-revisiting-proto-sinaitic.pdf.
- ↑ Brixhe, C. "History of the Alphabet", in Christidēs & al.'s A History of Ancient Greek. 2007.
- ↑ Ullman, B. L. (April 1927). "The Added Letters of the Greek Alphabet" (in en). Classical Philology 22 (2): 136–141. doi:10.1086/360882. ISSN 0009-837X. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/360882.
- ↑ Vainstub, Daniel; Mumcuoglu, Madeleine; Hasel, Michael G.; Hesler, Katherine M.; Lavi, Miriam; Rabinovich, Rivka; Goren, Yuval; Garfinkel, Yosef. "A Canaanite's Wish to Eradicate Lice on an Inscribed Ivory Comb from Lachish". https://jjar.huji.ac.il/sites/default/files/jjar/files/jjar2_art4_lachish_p76-119_2022-10-12_01.pdf.
- ↑ "šnn / Semitic roots". Farlex, Inc. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/_/roots.aspx?type=Semitic&root=%C5%A1nn.
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External links
- Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions (byu.edu)
- Proto-Sinaitic – 18th–14th cent. B.C., Mnamon Ancient writing systems in the Mediterranean
- Escritura Proto-sinaítica (in Spanish), Promotora Española de Lingüística (Proel).
- Wadi el-Hol
- USC West Semitic Research Project site on Wadi el-Hol, with photos
- Yale news article on Wadi el-Hol from 2000 Dec
- Archeology article on Wadi el-Hol from 2000 Jan
- New York Times article on Wadi el-Hol from 1999 Nov
- BBC article on Wadi el-Hol from 1999 Nov
![]() | Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic script.
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