Thursday, April 29, 2021

LAKISH INSCRIPTIONS GALORE

Lakish inscriptions: syllabic and consonantal

The West Semitic inscriptions from Lakish (Tel Lachish in southern Israel) are presented as examples of:

West Semitic Syllabic and Consonantal Scripts

https://www.academia.edu/12894458/The_origin_of_the_alphabet

 Lakish (Tel Lachish, Tell ed-Duweir) has yielded examples of the four West Semitic writing systems in the evolutionary scheme that I have dubbed "The Quadrinity" (four in one):
Proto-syllabary >
Proto-consonantary >
Neo-consonantary >
Neo-syllabary.

Its sparklingly original formula is:

E = 2M + 2C squared

E is Early Alphabet, M = Monosyllabary, C = Consonantary, and the four components can be neatly fitted into a square box. The origin of the alphabet was fourfold (Quadruple and Quadratic).

My detailed response to the publication of the Lakish lice-comb inscription now appears in the bundle of blogs cited above; as I see it, all the claims made about it are incorrect: "oldest known sentence written in first alphabet"; the Sinai Turquoise mines have numerous sentences inscribed with the proto-alphabet; this comb-inscription is not proto-alphabetic ("first alphabet"); its letters are not consonantal-alphabetic but syllabic (as shown by different stances or forms for the syllabograms).

The best available exemplification of the West Semitic neo-syllabic script is the lengthy inscription on the Qeiyafa ostracon (the David and Goliath oracle), which mentions DA-WI-DI and GU-LI-YU-TU:
https://sites.google.com/view/collesseum/qeiyafa-ostracon-2

Likewise the three Yerubbaal shards, which say, when joined together correctly, LA-YU-RU-BA-`A-LA GI-DI.... , "For Yerubba`al", naming the Judge Gideon who overthrew the invaders from Midian.
https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2021/09/khirbet-ar-rai-inscription-lyrbl.html

Lakish was apparently unoccupied in the time of the Judges in Israel, when the Neo-syllabary flourished, but its lice-comb inscription is clearly neo-syllabic, and as this city was a centre of literacy, the Neo-syllabary may have been invented there; and this is possibly our earliest example of that type of writing.

Briefly, the comb-inscription is widely publicised as saying:
Y T Sh H. T. D L Q M L S ` [R W]  Z Q T
"May this tusk root out the lice of the hai[r and the] beard"
My neo-syllabic reading finds more letters (some of the vowels are uncertain, so only the consonants are shown):
' K Sh R H R M K L Q M L M W L S ` R K W L Z Q N K
"I will effectively remove all the lice from your hair and also from your beard"

'akshir hérîm kull qamalim walisa`araka walizuqunaka

It is not the user speaking about the comb and its use, but the comb itself speaking to the user about its usefulness.

5 comments:

Z4chst3r said...

Would love to hear your take on the Lachish lice comb recently published.

Brian Edric Colless said...

Yes, I am working on my angry response to Daniel Vainstub's reading of it, which is replete with errors, but basically correct. They can not see the fish (S), the cord on stick (Q), the mouth (P),the hand (K, in KL QML, "every louse", not LQML "lice").

Brian Edric Colless said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Brian Edric Colless said...

My ongoing response to the publication of the lice-comb inscription now appears in the bundle of blogs cited above. Actually there is no P-sign (mouth)in it, as stated in my earlier comment. It is not consonantal-alphabetic but syllabic; it offers another example of the West Semitic Neo-consonantary, like the Qeiyafa ostracon, which mentions DA-WI-DI and GU-LI-YU-TU, and also the three Yerubbaal shards, which say, when joined together correctly, LA-YU-RU-BA-`A-LA GI-DI....

Brian Edric Colless said...

In my previous comment I mistakenly wrote "West Semitic Neo-consonantary" instead of "Neo-syllabary". Incidentally, I am not sure whether the tiny curse "tablette" is syllabic; it seems that there are variant forms for the various letters, and this suggests syllabic writing.
http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2023/12/ebal-curse-tablet.html