CRYPTCRACKER

2011-09-23T21:36:00.000-07:00

In Dan Brown's mystery novel, The Da Vinci Code (2003, Corgi pb, p. 40) we are told that the modern pyramid at the Louvre art museum in Paris has exactly "666 panes of glass", and according to "conspiracy buffs" this happens to be "the number of Satan".
   What is the origin of this idea that "six hundred and sixty-six" is an inauspicious number? Well, as with so many answers to mysterious questions, "it's in the Book", and in the very last book of the Christian Bible, namely The Apocalypse, or The Revelation (please don't show your ignorance by "misnoming" it "Revelations").
   In Chapter 13 (yes, and I am not making this up) in the last verse (number 18, which is 3 times 6, I have noticed for the first time in my life, but, don't get me wrong, of course I have known that 3 x 6 = 18 for most of my life), we are told that the number of the Beast is "six hundred and sixty-six", that is, 6-6-6 (Revelation 13:18). Incidentally, interestingly, but not significantly, the Greek word for six is hex (be a witch or bewitch).
My interpretation of the visions and predictions in that chapter will be presented for your consideration here. Basically, I regard it as an updating of the prophecies of the Book of Daniel (chapters 7 to 12) for first-century Christians.
    John the Seer (1.1-2) sees a monster, a "beast" (therion) coming up out of the sea (the place where evil lurks); it has seven heads with ten horns and each horn has a diadem on it (13.1)   The beast was a composite creature, with body parts taken from a leopard, a bear, and a lion, and these were the three animals Daniel saw in a vision (Dn 7:1-8); they represent ancient world empires, and their rulers. The lion was Babylon and Nebukadressar (Nebuchadnezzar); the bear was the Median kingdom under Astyages the Mede; the leopard was the Persian empire under Cyrus the Great and his successors; and there was a fourth monster, with iron teeth and ten horns, representing Alexander the Great and his successors in the Grecian or Hellenistic empire; and a small horn (Dn 7.19-22) sprang up and made war on the saints (Israel), clearly Antiokhos IV (Antiokhos Epiphanes), who saw himself as a divine manifestation (an 'epiphany') and actively persecuted Jews. In this regard he was a model for Nero Caesar, who was also a Hellenist with a belief in his own divinity, and who likewise persecuted "the saints".
(Note that my unraveling of the web of mystery spun by the author of the Book of Daniel is set forth in detail in Colless 1992.)
My proposition is that Nero Caesar was the beast whose number was 666.

(But wait, there's more to come)

Brian E. Colless, Cyrus the Persian as Darius the Mede in the Book of Daniel, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 56 (1992) 113-126.

2011-09-13T21:33:00.000-07:00

AMULET FROM DEIR RIFA

Gordon Hamilton has issued a personal account of eleven West Semitic inscriptions discovered in recent times, including a button-sized disc from Deir Rifa (Petrie Museum UC 51354) on the website "The Bible and Interpretation" (http://bibleinterp.com). His article is available on a pdf :

http://bibleinterp.com/PDFs/SealOfASeer.pdf

GJH had already published (http://jss.oxfordjournals.org/)"A proposal to read the legend of a seal-amulet from Deir Rifa, Egypt as an early West Semitic alphabetic inscription" (Journal of Semitic Studies, 54, 2009, 51-79, with a photograph, plate 2, p. 53).

First, I notice Gordon does not mention me, though I refer (though not defer) to him in my websites, and it can not simply be because I report my research in progress on the internet, since he has a lot of web addresses in his footnotes; and he did quote me in his book (mostly dismissively), but it would appear that after my review of it, the Albrightians (I am still an adherent of the Albright school, but not a believer of all the tenets, particularly with regard to West Semitic scripts) have ostracized me (as you do, with ostraca). They do not rank me as one of their 'peers', apparently, and therefore do not need to give peer reviews of my work. It may be noted that F.M. Cross (the dean of the Albright school) had been consulted in the process of interpreting the legend (p. 73), and he had insisted that the word for 'seer' (h.z) was present; hence Hamilton's idea that it was the seal of a seer.

The basic defect in Hamilton's whole case for identifying the original Proto-Canaanite letters is that he has not taken into account the six documents published by W. F. Petrie in 1912: one of them provides a paradigm of the consonantal proto-alphabet; two others, taken together, offer another copy of the consonantary; one of them has a text using the syllabic script. Every speculatively constructed paradigm has to be tested alongside these two original prototypes, but this exercise has not been done by anyone else. I have presented my results in my critique of Hamilton's conjectural table of Proto-Canaanite consonantal signs.

Turning now to the inscription, we are told that Rifeh (Deir Rifa) is situated in the extreme south of Middle Egypt and it was a border-post between the Hyksos and Theban sectors of the Two Lands.
For our own examination of the object, we can see a drawing (fig. 2, on p. 4 of the pdf) and a photograph (plate 2, p. 53, of the JSS article). Hamilton's interpretation has it as a seal-amulet bearing a name and a title in alphabetic script, and he reads it as:

L QN H.Z Belonging to Cain (qn) the seer.

With his characteristic confidence (which seems insufficiently critical and 'scientific') he draws all kinds of conclusions from this, and boldly declares: "Only the first letter is ambiguous paleographically"; because 'Hamilton' (as he calls himself third-personally and objectively) says so. He is referring to the proposed L; but I think he is tearing off one of the bull's horns, making it Lamed instead of 'Aleph (ox).

Coincidentally, I have already put on this website a seal with a Canaanite inscription (apparently from a Hyksos set of scarabs).

http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2010/03/inscribed-west-semitic-stone-seal-this.html

This one employs the West Semitic syllabary, not the consonantary (proto-alphabet), as does the signet ring from Megiddo (acknowledged by Giovanni Garbini and myself, but treated as consonantal by Hamilton):

http://sites.google.com/site/collesseum/megiddoring

Accordingly, the possibility has to be faced that the Deir Rifa inscription is likewise logo-syllabic (the Megiddo ring has one logogram in my interpretation: "Sealed, the SCEPTRE of Megiddo").

This is one form of ambiguity which has to be considered, and I suggest that the Rifeh text has two logograms, among the scroll-decorations (note that I have omitted the scrolling from my drawings, leaving only the script). GJH sees them as two Egyptian `ankh symbols, denoting 'life (p. 56)'. However, they are different signs; this is clear on Petrie's drawing (fig. 1, p. 55) and Hamilton's (fig. 2, p. 55) . The one with a an O and T (so to speak) as its constituent parts is the `ankh; the other is the nefer sign (O+), symbolizing goodness and beauty. Accordingly, these signs are saying "good life". Also, if thedu'ais T. in the consonantary and T.A in the syllabary (t.abu 'good'), but the `ankh is only used in the syllabary (as H.I and h.iwatu 'life').

A fundamental question is whether the Deir Rifa text is consonantal or syllabic. Hamilton simply chooses to read it consonantally, ignoring the syllabic option. Of course, since one-quarter of the syllabic signs are found in the consonantary, we can easily start off on the wrong track.

The way the object should be held and viewed is another source of conclusion-confusion. GJH has it so that an ax-head and a fence are upright at the bottom, hence ZH., but he (following F. M. Cross) wants it to be H.Z 'seer', another point of ambiguity. I am sure the fence is not the origin of H., and I doubt that Z is an ax, preferring to see a manacle (ziqq). At the top he sees L (coil of rope?) with an extra stroke attaching it to the 8-sign (Q on the Albrightian table, but actually S., Tsadey). Then comes a snake for N.

Holding the object so that there is a horizontal line of writing (with the # sign sitting on the ingot), not a vertical column, the plausible snake sign (NA or N) becomes a face-profile, PA (panu). The # is presumably attached to the base, to form a complete SA (or S, Samek), the Egyptian Djed column, representing the backbone. At the left end I now see 'Alep, ox-head with horns (alphabetic ', or syllabic 'A). The 8 could be DU (dudu, jar).

So, if I had to read it alphabetically it would come out thus: ' S. N S

But syllabically it would be 'A DU PA SA, or SA PA DU 'A.

The sequence du'a suggests the common Semitic root dw(h) "be sick", noting Arabic da'a.

The common Semitic root sph can be transitive (sweep away, vanish) or intransitive (be swept away, vanish); but it is sometimes indistinguishable from swp (cease, end).

SA PA DU 'A "Vanish sickness. Good life"

This interpretation seems appropriated if the object is a talisman with an apotropaic function.

*beads indicate a woman?

THE ELGAR REGAL ENIGMA

2011-08-18T05:51:00.000-07:00

The Elgar regal enigma

Brian Colless

In 1899 Edward Elgar published his orchestral masterpiece known as Enigma Variations, or Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma), bearing the inscription "Dedicated to my friends pictured within".1 The "enigma" of the title apparently refers to the theme itself, and of it Elgar said: "The enigma I will not explain - its 'dark saying' must be left unguessed." And he added: "further, through and over the set another and larger theme 'goes' but is not played.... So the principal theme never appears, even as in some late dramas ... the chief character is never on the stage".2 Elgar has thus disclosed the existence of another theme running through his theme and variations; and it has been widely assumed that the enigma theme was created as a counterpoint to this mysterious melody. Tradition has it that Elgar also confessed that it was a tune everybody knew.

The composer may also be telling us, I suggest, that the unplayed theme represents "the chief character" among the "friends pictured within", to whom the work is dedicated. I have long suspected that Elgar had a member of the royal family in mind, someone he could not with propriety claim as a friend, but a noble personage for whom he nonetheless felt admiration and affection. This person could have been Prince Albert Edward (1841-1910), who was to become King Edward VII in 1901, and who classed Elgar as his favourite composer. In this case "God bless the Prince of Wales" might be the tune we are seeking. However, I think we should "look higher", to use Elizabeth Barrett Browning's words, in Elgar's Sea Pictures, Opus 37.

The Enigma Variations were composed between October 1898 and February1899, as Opus 36. Elgar's Opus 35 was Caractacus (1898), written in the wake of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee (1897), and fervently dedicated to her. Elgar was thus aspiring to be purveyor of music to the Sovereign, long before he was officially appointed, in 1924, as Master of the King's Musick.

The case to be argued here is that the additional, unplayed, familiar theme is "God save the Queen", and "the chief character" among the portraits is Victoria Regina. A commonly held view is that the Enigma theme represents Elgar himself. However, it is firmly established that the final (fourteenth) variation is his self-portrait; it is designated "E.D.U.", a cryptogram for "Edu" or "Edoo", the nickname his wife Alice gave him. Hers is the first variation, "C.A.E.", "Caroline Alice Elgar", and she was present at the birth of the theme, when her husband was improvising at his piano. This theme is clearly stated in the C.A.E. and E.D.U. variations, and it seems to belong to both of them, Edward and Alice alike.

The first four notes of the enigma theme (2 quavers, 2 crotchets) would certainly allow the name "Edward Elgar" to be sung to them, as Michael Kennedy has noted.3 (As a possible analogy, I think Rakhmaninov puts his signature, a four-note motif, at the end of some of the movements in his symphonies and concertos.) "Alice Elgar" would also fit here, but "Queen Victoria" is equally possible, as well as an innumerable host of other names.

Many tunes have been proposed as candidates for the companion theme. "Auld Lang Syne", with its plea that old acquaintance(s) should not be forgotten, is a seductive siren in this regard, but Elgar specifically rejected this solution. "Rule, Britannia" and the National Anthem have also been proposed, but not generally accepted. Nevertheless, I consider that from historical and musical points of view "God save the Queen" is a reasonable choice. It has regularly provided a basis for variations. For example, in the pianistic duel between Sigismond Thalberg and Franz Liszt, in 1837, Thalberg performed a fourteen-minute "Fantasia on God Save The Queen" (Opus 27). More significantly, on one occasion Elgar set it as counterpoint to the 5/4 melody (second movement) in Tchaikovsky's Symphonie Pathétique. In June 1897 Elgar had found difficulty in playing the bass part of the 5/4 movement in a piano duet; and when Frederick George Edwards (editor of Novello's Musical Times) printed several skits on the National Anthem for the Queen's Jubilee year, Elgar sent him this humorous exercise, setting the anthem against the Tchaikovsky 5/4 tune.4 The plaintive Enigma theme seems to belong to the world of the Pathétique symphony, just as the Nimrod variation is closely associated with Beethoven's Pathétique sonata, and this could well be a vital clue. When Elgar used the Enigma theme again, in The Music Makers (Opus 69), he avowed that in both settings it "expressed" and "embodied" his "sense of the loneliness of the artist"5. So we must accept that something of Elgar the person is contained in the Enigma theme. Brian Trowell contrasts the melancholic Edward Elgar of the theme with "the almost military determination of the Finale" (the confident, vigorous E.D.U.). 6

Trowell has adumbrated a solution to the enigma along those lines.7 He believes that Elgar would originally have written the theme ("the me?", Trowell speculates) in the key of E minor (which Elgar elsewhere used for depicting himself); the companion theme would simply be six bars of octave EE semibreves, if the Enigma theme is transposed down to E minor (from G minor). Elgar often employed an octave E as a rebus. His publisher Jaeger (of Nimrod fame) called Elgar "the octave" and "a teazer yclept E.E.". Dora Penny (Dorabella, Variation X) also recorded the fact that Elgar was known as E.E., and Elgar had said to her that she "of all people" should have guessed the solution; Jaeger declined to reveal the secret to her, because "the dear E.E. did make me promise not to tell you".

Another person is brought into the picture in Trowell's reconstruction, namely Helen Weaver, Elgar's first fiancée, now thought to be the subject of the heart-rending Romanza (Variation XIII, entitled * * * and commonly understood as representing Lady Mary Lygon).8 Trowell points out that if the Enigma theme is played in E major (E for Elgar), the first two bars will have an octave EE in the bass, while the second two bars have a B, that is, H (in German notation), presumably standing for Helen. Variation XIII transposed into E major would begin E, H (Edward, Helen); the Finale would have EHE HEH EHE HEH EHE, and Trowell cites the illuminating analogy of HEEC in a letter of Elgar (Harriet Cohen embracing Edward Elgar).9

In discussing the place of Helen Weaver in the Enigma theme and variations, Trowell considers the use of a quotation from Mendelssohn's "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage".10 This motif would depict the sea voyage made by Helen Weaver when she emigrated to New Zealand (though ostensibly representing Lady Mary's trip to Australia), and also Elgar's longing for his distant beloved. Significantly, it recurs in the Finale, where it plays a dominant role. Elgar converted it into a new triumphant figure by adding an extra note and displacing the rhythm; he disguised it (after its first appearance) by crossing the parts among the upper strings (as Tchaikovsky did in the last movement of his Pathétique symphony, a work which we have already mentioned in connection with Elgar's 1897 parody of the National Anthem). I will argue here that Elgar followed the same procedure so as to incorporate "God Save the Queen" into his Enigma theme. It should be noted that if this theme is transposed into E minor, according to Trowell's prescription, we see a key signature of one sharp (F#), as for G major, the key in which "God Save the Queen" is usually sung.

I proceed further on my quest, comforted and inspired by the words of Trowell himself: "there is rarely a single, simple solution to any Elgarian mystery".11 If (as Trowell postulates) the Violin Concerto can enshrine the soul of not only Elgar himself but also Helen Weaver, Alice Stuart Wortley, and Julia Worthington, then the Enigma theme can encompass Edward Elgar, Alice Elgar, Helen Weaver, and even Queen Victoria, as important parts of the composer's life. And while the supposed six bars of octave EE may well have been in Elgar's mind (apparently he teasingly disclosed this detail to Jaeger), we are still at liberty to seek, in his own words, "another and larger theme"

Does the National Anthem match the structure of Elgar's enigmatic theme? The normal form for a tune is sixteen bars, in two sections of eight bars, or four sections of four bars. Elgar's theme has six bars in G minor, followed by an interlude of four bars in G major, six bars of restatement in G minor, and a final bar in the major (a total of seventeen bars, in ABA form). Rosa Burley, a confidante of the composer, was not given the answer (though she once jokingly claimed to be the theme itself, when asked by one of the 'variants' whether she too was one of the variations).12 She declares that to find a solution one would need to "discover another tune based on the same bizarre scheme" (six plus four plus six).13 The British national anthem certainly has a different shape: six bars, then eight, making fourteen bars in all, normally in the key of G major. However, Ian Parrott points out that Elgar originally had eight bars for the middle section, but reduced it to four.14 Parrott likewise regards the six bars of the first part (for some reason followed by a double bar line) as an unusual number. Could it be that Elgar decided to reduce the eight bars to four because his mystery would be too easily solved, with a combination of six bars and eight bars, exactly as in the national anthem?

A notable difference between the two pieces is the time: Elgar's theme is 4/4, while the anthem is 3/4. Yet it is striking that Elgar's tune is made up of six fragments, each having three beats, stretching over six bars (the first violins are silent on the first beat of each bar). Nevertheless, I submit that if we are to find the royal hymn hidden here, we must also look in the gaps, which are filled by the lower strings (viola and violoncello).

One more piece of circumstantial evidence can be adduced here. In 1902, early in the reign of King Edward VII, Novello published a choral version of "God save the King", "arranged by Edward Elgar". For the key signature, instead of one sharp indicating the expected G major, we find two flats, precisely as in the Enigma theme, though this time the key is obviously not G minor but B flat major. In my opinion, Elgar has inserted the sequence of notes (with only one exception and with a few intrusions) which make up the first part of "God save the Queen" (in B flat major) into the score of the first section of his Enigma theme (in G minor).

I will now attempt to describe the situation diagrammatically and verbally (the reader may also wish to refer to the score at this point). The following diagram shows the correspondences between Elgar's version of the anthem (3/4) and the enigma theme (4/4):

3/4
1 2 3 4 5 6

4/4
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Bb C A | | D |( ) Bb |(D) | Bb - A | B

Bb C | Bb - C -| D Eb -| - - C | | C

The opening phrase ("God save our gracious Queen") emerges as follows: the first Bb ('God') is sounded on the violas; the second Bb ('save') is with the first violins (followed by an intrusive quaver G); the C ('our') is given out by the first violins and the violas; the A ('gra-'), first beat in the second bar, is provided by the first violins as the fourth beat in bar one; the Bb ('‑cious') is heard in the cellos, on the first beat in the second bar; the C ('Queen') appears in the cello line on the third beat of the second bar, and also as the final quaver in that bar (first violins)

The second phrase ("long live our noble Queen") has one note missing, and this may be taken as verification of Elgar's assertion that the underlying theme is never played: the first D ('long'), at the commencement of bar three in each case, is in the second violin and cello parts; the second D ('live') is sounded by the first violins, as a quaver at the end of the second beat in bar three; the Eb ('our') is down with the violoncelli on the third beat; the D ('no‑') does not occur, either on the last beat of bar three or on the first beat of bar four (though in the fifth bar, which simply "marks time" in the progression of the overriding theme, there are three D's on the third beat); the C ('‑ble') is in the cello line (third beat); the Bb ('Queen') is in the first violins at the end of bar four.

The third line ("God save the Queen") is in the sixth and seventh bars (bar five adds nothing here): the C ('God') is in the viola part; the Bb ('save') is the first violins' first note in bar six, on the second beat; the A ('the') is on the fourth beat, in the first violins; the Bb ('Queen') is modified to B natural, on the first beat of bar seven.

The origin of the interlude, which consists of four bars in G major, can be found in the run of four quavers on the second and third beats of the sixth bar of the anthem: the very same sequence (GABC in the G major setting) is played by the second violins, and the strings vamp on this motif. The first flute has a D in the second bar of this section (the expected note for "Send her victor‑"), but I cannot detect the rest of the anthem here. The words could, however, be fitted to the constant crotchet-quaver-quaver pattern (eight times).

The second statement of the theme (again in G minor) has some different harmonies, and the initial Bb ('God') is missing (the bass lines have G, for God?). The bassi now have the notes missing from the top line in bars 2-4 (previously provided by the violoncelli), though the D for 'no(-ble)' at the beginning of bar four (here bar fourteen) is lacking again. There is a new feature in bar sixteen of the theme: while the first violins (assisted by the cellos) are playing "God save the" of the original's bar five (C Bb A), the second violins have exactly the right notes (Bb major) for the final "God save the" (bar thirteen of the original), that is, GFEb ('God') D ('save') C ('the'). For the word "Queen" in both cases the Bb becomes B natural, as occurred previously, in bar seven.

The question now needs to be asked, whether this solution is compatible with one proposed by Ian Parrott, or whether the two are mutually exclusive. Parrott has offered an intriguing explanation of the title "Enigma", and also of the larger theme that "goes".15 "The enigma I will not explain - its 'dark saying' must be left unguessed", Elgar said. The word "enigma" (Greek ainigma, Latin aenigma), which means "a riddle, a dark saying", occurs in the New Testament once, in a mystical utterance of Saint Paul (1 Corinthians 13:12): "We now see in a mirror, in an enigma (or: enigmatically, dimly), but then face to face" (my translation). Parrott has confirmed that Elgar went to a Catholic church on the Sunday when this Epistle would have been read out (12 February 1899), and Elgar completed the orchestration in that month. For Parrott this means that the friends would see themselves through these variations, but enigmatically. And it is an interesting coincidence, Parrott notes, that there are thirteen friends, and 1 Corinthians 13 has thirteen verses.

Parrott's explanation of Elgar's words to Dora Penny (Dorabella, Variation X), "I thought you of all people would guess it", is that her father being a clergyman she should recognize the Bible reference. Yet Dora was convinced that "the Enigma was concerned with a tune", and when it was revealed it would be obvious.16 Michael Kennedy suggests Doh-ray (from Dora) as a possibility for Elgar's meaning.17 If this were so, then "God save the Queen" would be a suitable candidate, since it begins Do-Do-Re, with the very stutter that is supposed to characterize Dorabella in her variation.

For the mystery of the "larger theme", Parrott directs our attention to variation XI (G.R.S.), representing George Robertson Sinclair, an organist who had the reputation of never playing a wrong pedal note. The second and third bars are consigned solely to bassoons and double basses, and this was immediately taken as representing Sinclair's skill on the pedal-board (the tempo is allegro di molto). To this Elgar retorted that the variation "has nothing to do with organists or cathedrals", but simply portrays Sinclair's bulldog falling into the river (bar 1), "paddling upstream" (2-3), and "his rejoicing bark on landing" (second half of bar 5). Sinclair had challenged Elgar to set this incident to music, and this was the result. Nevertheless, Parrott insists that the two bass bars, which have the first sixteen notes of the theme on sixteen successive staccato quavers, do refer to organ pedalling. Moreover, he cites a number of examples of G minor works by Bach, which anticipate the style of Elgar's motif. Parrott concludes that Bach was the inspiration behind the theme for the variations.

Parrott reminds us that Elgar went out of his way to visit Bach's birthplace in 1902; and Elgar and Sinclair were both enthusiasts for his music. It should be added that Jerrold Northrop Moore tells of a musical pun devised by Elgar in 1866 (aged 8): four staves, each with a different clef, their middle notes spelling out BACH.18 Consequently, we should ask here whether Dan the bulldog's "bark" was a verbal pun on the name Bach. I suspect that we have a reference not only to a dog "paddling" and a "bark", but also to an organist "pedalling" and playing "Bach".

However, Bach is not the theme that "goes". If we allow that Nimrod (Variation IX) carries an allusion to a conversation Elgar had with A. J. Jaeger on Beethoven's slow movements, and that Nimrod's first thee bars are based on the Adagio cantabile theme of the Pathétique Sonata (as acknowledged by Elgar himself),19 then it is possible that Elgar is here not only paying homage to his friend Jaeger but also to Beethoven. Similarly, G. R. S. (Variation XI) not only memorializes G. R. Sinclair and his dog Dan, but also Bach. By the same token, the Enigma theme, including its harmonies, pays tribute to Queen Victoria, being a variation on "God save the Queen".

There is also an allusion to Mendelssohn in Variation XIII, as we have seen, and he was a musician to whom Queen Victoria never had occasion to say: "We are not amused".

My thesis is, therefore, that "the chief character" among the "friends pictured within", who "is never on the stage", and whose theme "is not played", is Victoria Regina. The anthem is certainly "not played", in its entirety, but it is presented in a distorted, fractured, and dislocated state. Distorted, having its time changed from 3/4 to 4/4; fractured, being broken into pieces; dislocated, with the fragments distributed among the orchestral parts.

Unfortunately, my solution is in conflict with Elgar's reply to Arthur Troyte Griffith (Troyte, Variation VII), when asked whether it was "God save the King": "No, of course not; but it is so well known that it is extraordinary that no one has spotted it".20 (In responding to this, we must remember that we are dealing with the man who denied that the Sinclair Variation had anything to do with organists.) The first part can easily be countered: not God save the King, but God save the Queen. The second statement could belong to the category of protesting too much, or else Elgar is deliberately muddying the waters, covering his traces, speaking in riddles, talking enigmatically (like Mime, but Siegfried can see his true meaning): "The National Anthem is so familiar that it is surprising that no one has recognized it (except you, Troyte, and you are only guessing, without giving musicological evidence)". So this "dark saying" may actually strengthen my case: in Elgar's day the world's best-known tune was the anthem of the British Empire, functioning also as the melody for a patriotic song in America.

Percy M. Young characterizes Edward Elgar as a man who was firmly convinced that the Monarchy and the Empire were admirable and necessary. He compares Elgar to a friend of Leigh Hunt, who was considered capable, even as a spirit in the afterlife, of taking off his hat at the sound of "God save the Queen". 21 In the Enigma theme, then, the soul of Edward Elgar bows in reverence to God and the Queen.22

NOTES

1. For information on this work and its many enigmas, I have consulted Rosa Burley and Frank C. Carruthers, Edward Elgar: the record of a friendship, London, Barrie and Jenkins, 1972 (pp. 116-129); Edward Elgar, Enigma Variations, Opus 36, Novello, 1899; Michael Kennedy, Portrait of Elgar, London, Oxford University Press, 1968 (pp. 55-71); Michael Kennedy, Elgar Orchestral Music, London, B. B. C., 1970 (pp. 21-26); Raymond Monk (Ed.), Elgar Studies, Aldershot, Scolar Press, 1990 (Percy Young, Friends pictured within, pp. 81-106); Raymond Monk (Ed.), Edward Elgar: Music and Literature, Aldershot, Scolar Press, 1993 (Brian Trowell, Elgar's use of literature, pp. 182-326); Jerrold Northrop Moore, Edward Elgar: a creative life, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1984 (pp. 247-274); Ian Parrott, Elgar, London, J. M. Dent, 1971 (pp. 37-49); Percy M. Young, Elgar O.M. A Study of a Musician, 2nd edn, London, Purnell Book Services, 1973 (pp. 278-284).

2. Cited by Parrott, Elgar, p. 39. See Trowell's treatment of this utterance, in Raymond Monk (Ed.), Edward Elgar: Music and Literature, pp. 216-217.

3. Kennedy, Portrait, p. 59.

4. Moore, Edward Elgar, p. 223.

5. Trowell, p. 215.

6. Trowell, p. 215.

7. Trowell, n. 147, pp. 306-307.

8. Trowell, pp. 207, 215-224.

9. Trowell, p. 307.

10. Trowell, p. 221.

11. Trowell, p. 244.

12. Burley, Edward Elgar, p. 131.

13. Burley, p. 119.

14. Parrott, Elgar, p. 38; Young, Elgar, p. 279, and facing p. 113 (he incorrectly says p. 145) a photograph of the first draft of the theme, with four bars crossed out, though only one note had been written on the two staves (a B natural above the bass stave).

15. Parrott, Elgar, pp. 46-49.

16. Kennedy, Portrait, p. 58 ("Elgar made it perfectly clear to us when the work was being written that the Enigma was concerned with a tune"); Burley, Edward Elgar, p. 120 (Dorabella rejected Auld Lang Syne, the suggestion of her husband Richard Powell, as the solution, but she believed that "when it has been found, there will be no room for any doubt that it is the right one").

17. Kennedy, Elgar, p. 22.

18. Moore, Edward Elgar, p. 29.

19. Kennedy, Portrait, p. 65.

20. Ibid., p. 58.

21. Young, Elgar, p. 78.

22. In homage to Elgar the inveterate punster and violinist, I have made one four-letter word in this sentence intentionally ambiguous (homographically, not homophonically); like Dan the bulldog he might also bow-wow to Bach. Similarly, the word "regal" in the title of this essay is an anagram of the name of a renowned English composer. It seems to me that Elgar's Enigma theme is actually a variation on the National Anthem. My last word is this: whether Elgar knew it or not, "God Save the Queen" is embedded in his Enigma theme, albeit transmogrified.

Other theories are outlined in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_Variations

Most recent theory:
http://enigmathemeunmasked.blogspot.com/
Robert Padgett makes many interesting connections: with Martin Luther, the hymn Ein' feste Burg and musical ciphers, Jesus Christ, the Holy Shroud of Turin, and Nimrod in the Inferno.

"Elgar makes multiple references to Dante’s epic poem in the Enigma Variations. One example is the title Nimrod for Variation IX, a movement that concludes with a dramatic blast from the brass section. In the Inferno Dante portrays Nimrod as a babbling giant imprisoned in the ninth circle of hell who blows a piercing blast from his horn to draw attention to himself. In Dante’s hell Nimrod is cursed with confused speech because he built the Tower of Babel Confusion of Tongues. In imitation of that famous biblical narrative, Elgar follows Nimrod with Variation X, a movement that pokes fun at Dora Penny’s stutter – a speech impediment."

Brian Colless Ph.D., Th.D, an Australian, born in Sydney in 1936, Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.

Research Chronicle: New Zealand Musicological Society, Volume 6 (1999) 58-67

2011-07-03T22:13:00.000-07:00

The science of Paleogrammatology
and the evolution of the alphabet

                I am not here to blind you with SCIENCE but with SIGNS.

Anyone who knew me during my years as a lecturer at Massey University (1970 till 2001) thinks of me as a teacher of religion. Certainly, in 1970, I came from Melbourne University with a masterate in Hebrew Bible theology and a doctorate in Syriac Christian mysticism, to establish Religious Studies in the Faculty of Humanities at Massey University in Palmerston North. First it was a non-entity without a department to belong to, then a sub-department, next a thriving little independent department (when small was beautiful and in this case rationally economic), and finally as an unmentionable segment of the School of History, Philosophy, Politics, and Classical Studies (no space left for including Religious Studies). In this same connection, in the years 1962 and 1963, I was a lecturer in a theological college in South Australia.
    However, at Massey university I endeavoured to present my subject not as theology but as “phenomenology of religion”, and as a science, Religionswissenschaft (religion-science) as it is known in German. And yet it has often been observed that I do not go around spouting religion so much as languages and scripts, or to be technical, talking about linguistics (the scientific study of languages and their structure), epigraphy (the study of inscriptions), and palaeography (study of ancient writings and inscriptions, which involves dating, deciphering, interpreting).
    Originally, however, I was a secondary school teacher at Granville Boys High School in Sydney, from 1959 to 1961 (Crocodile Dundee alias Paul Hogan was a pupil there, but not in my time); my teaching subjects were Latin, French, English, and Ancient History; and subsequently in other states of Australia I gave instruction in German, and also ancient Hebrew and Greek. Along the way I have learnt many other ancient and modern languages in order to read original texts and academic literature in my fields of study, which are many and various. So I can claim to be a linguist and an antiquarian (I live more in the Bronze Age and the Iron Age than in the current Gas Age).
     Now, the subject of this discourse is “paleogrammatolgy” (a word I have recently invented and which you have now discovered), and paleogrammatology is not about ancient languages but about ancient letters (Greek paleo, old; and grammata, written characters, from the verb grapho, write or draw). So we will be talking, in the English language, about scripts or writing systems, rather than about languages.
    In 1964, I was teaching English, French, and German in Launceston, in Tasmania, and on the side I was studying extramurally for a London University degree in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac (its title was Master of Theology, and I failed it). This also involved reading ancient inscriptions in Hebrew, Phoenician, and Moabite (all dialects of the same language, which I call Canaanian, the language of Canaan (Kana`an), which the benighted English blithely pronounce as Keinen. I had already been delving into the ancient languages and scripts of the Bible lands in 1958, while I was supposed to be studying for my Diploma in Education at Sydney University.
    While I was at Granville Boys High (it had been Granville Tech, before I arrived and introduced foreign languages into the curriculum, and it was still a tough environment) I organized a linguistics club after school hours, with some of my brightest students. By digging deeply and archaeologically in my filing cabinet (which has travelled over land and sea with me since then) I have found the exercise book in which I kept notes, including the name of the group as the “Granville Linguistic Society”. We also talked about “writing”, which is not strictly a part of linguistics, and we had as one of our resources a table of the development of many of the letters of the alphabet from Egyptian hieroglyphs, taken from the back of a breakfast-cereal packet (corn flakes, to be scientifically accurate, probably Kellogg brand). Looking at that incomplete and inaccurate chart now, in my humble capacity as the world expert on the original alphabet (the proto-alphabet, I have dubbed it) I see that it did not do too much damage to the minds of those eager young learners.
    [I hope they remember me with affection, and likewise those fifty (quinquaginta, cinquante, fünfzig) good keen lads in my Ancient History class; this was my most glorious year in education; if any of those twelve-year-olds misbehaved in the classroom the rest would hiss him; and whenever I arrived to begin each lesson there was always someone waiting at the door for me with something to show and tell; antiquarianism is such fun. I now feel, with regret, that when I had to take detention classes after school, instead of making them sit there in silent penance for their disruptive behaviour in other people’s classes, I should have encouraged them to practise yoga meditation, or stimulated them with the origin of the letters of the alphabet. But my knowledge was rudimentary and as imprecise as any other expert’s opinions in those unenlightened times, as the successive editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica show. They still have not got it right.]
    During my year in Tasmania (1964), teaching English, French, and German at Scotch (sic!) College in Launceston (sick indeed, as tuberculosis had raged there before I joined the staff), I also began reading seriously about decipherment of mysterious scripts (including the proto-alphabet). For resources, I only had my own books, purchased by mail from Blackwell’s bookshop in Oxford, and those available in the local public library.
    One thing I remembered ever after from that search (it was not yet research of my own): some of the great decipherers, having cracked the code of one particular script, then thought they had obtained the key to open other doors leading to the decoding of more undeciphered scripts, and in the process they made idiots of themselves. So in my own sleuthing in this treacherous minefield, I have trodden warily, with that warning in mind. (A related anecdotal real-life experience: once, at the Suez Canal in Egypt, I got out of the bus and went running over the landscape for exercise; I was called back urgently by a local Arab, because there were bombs in the ground.)
     Nevertheless, in spite of that caveat about thinking you have discovered the key, when I eventually worked out the origins of the alphabet, I became more audacious. After identifying the source of each letter (Aleph and Alpha an ox; Bayt and Beta a house; Gaml and Gamma a boomerang; Dalt and Delta a door, and so on), building on the “experiments” and discoveries of my predecessors, I did begin trying to unravel other enigmatic scripts, because I had in fact found the key to open their locked gateways. In a word: ACROPHONY, also known as “the acrophonic principle”.
    My first lecture on the subject of ancient scripts (particularly the proto-alphabet) was presented at a language and literature conference in Christchurch in January 1987; it was ground-breaking (though not earth-shaking); it was published in 1988 as “Recent discoveries illuminating the origin of the alphabet”. Strange to say, it did not contain the word acrophony, nor the term acrophonic principle, though this was the underlying unstated assumption of my thesis.
    The word acrophony (as distinct from cacophony, “bad sound”) is apparently not in common or decent usage, since it is absent from my Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (1990); but acrophobia is there as “fear of heights” (from Greek akron, “summit”), and, more significantly, acronym, which refers to a noun or name constructed from the initial (or “top”) letters of other words (radar from radio detection and ranging; RADA from Royal Academy of Dramatic Art). Accordingly, acrophony is “summit sound”, and refers to taking the initial letter of a word that goes with a particular depiction of some object or symbol.

ACROPHONY the key to ancient syllabaries and the original alphabet (a consonantary)

Step1 REBUS (whole word) > a syllabogram (Mesopotamia, logo-syllabary) (ab, ba, bat)

Step 2 REBUS (first syllable) > a syllabogram (Canaan, and then Crete, Anatolia, Mesoamerica)

Step 3 REBUS (initial consonant) > a consonantogram (Canaan, proto-alphabet)

The results of my research show that the original letters of the proto-alphabet (Canaanite logo-consonantary) could act as:

(1) an acrophonic consonantogram (picture of snake > nakhash > N)

(2) a complex consonantogram (N–Kh-Sh + T = “copper”)

(3) a logogram (snake > nakhash)

See further:
http://sites.google.com/site/collesseum/alphabetevolution

Is Paleogrammatology a science?

Establishing TAXONOMY with TYPOLOGY should make it a scientific procedure. Right? (In Religiology the trouble was typecasting)

Like Paleontology and paleobotany we have FOSSILS to work on, in the form of clay tablets (and even papyrus rolls), and these stones still cry out.

PALEOGRAMMATOLOGY

Most of the terms listed here are not found in ordinary English dictionaries (some are newly minted)

GRAMMATOLOGY study of scripts and their components

PALEOGRAMMATOLOGY study of ancient writing systems

EPIGRAPHY study of inscriptions

PALEOGRAPHY study of ancient writings: involves dating, deciphering, interpreting

Linguistics, the scientific study of languages and their structure (cp physics, mathematics)

Grammatology, scientific study of writing systems, not “grammatics” or “graphics” (cp geology, biology)

TYPOLOGY OF ANCIENT SCRIPTS

SEMASIOGRAPHY communication through Sematograms or Ideograms

LOGOGRAPHY communication through Logographs/Logograms, Morphographic

PHONOGRAPHY communication through Phonograms (have sound-value but no meaning)

SYLLABARY a system of Syllabograms (ba bi bu)

LOGOSYLLABARY a system of Logograms and Syllabograms (Mesopotamia, Canaan)

CONSONANTARY a system of Consonantograms (b g d) Abgad (Abjad) (Phoenician alphabet)

LOGOCONSONANTARY a system of Logograms and Consonantograms (Egypt, proto-alphabet)

VOCOCONSONANTARY (ALPHABET) includes vocalic letters (vowel-signs) (Greek alphabet)

ALPHASYLLABARY a special system of syllabograms (each basic sign has the vowel /a/ built into it, but appendages indicate the other vowels [(Abugida) Abagada Abagidu] (Ethiopic, Indic)

Logography is practically impossible; English and Chinese texts are virtually logographic but both provide some phonetic assistance; generally, look at each word and say it (from memory: to too two), not sound it out, as is possible with Mâori or Suomi (Finnish).

TYPOLOGY OF CHARACTERS

GRAMMATA = Characters or Letters

LOGOGRAM or LOGOGRAPH represents a word

XENOGRAM a sign borrowed from another system (& =et = and)

PHONOGRAM represents a sound, single or syllabic, but has no meaning

REBOGRAM a phonogram used to represent other words or parts of words (rebus)

ACROPHONOGRAM says only the first consonant (a consonantogram) or syllable (syllabogram) of the word that goes with a particular image (depiction or symbol)

SYLLABOGRAM represents a syllable, bu, gi, du

CONSONANTOGRAM represents a consonant

VOCALOGRAM represents a vowel

ORTHOGRAM a determinative sign, written but not spoken,

PICTOGRAM or PICTOGRAPH? A picture telling a story?

SEMATOGRAM (IDEOGRAM) signs not attached to speech (heart-sign for love)

PALEOGRAM could mean an ancient letter or sign?!

POLYPHONOGRAM more than one possible reference (Mesopotamia)

A sign may belong to more than one category, and function in more than one way in different settings

(one sign as acrophonogram/syllabogram and also logogram).

The original letters of the proto-alphabet (Canaanite logo-consonantary) could act as:

(1) an acrophonic consonantogram (picture of snake > nakhash > N)

(2) a complex consonantogram (N–Kh-Sh + T = “copper”)

(3) a logogram (snake > nakhash)

ALPHABET here defined as a minimal set of signs for writing a language (whether vowels are represented or not) BEC 1996 (Contributions) 69

It is an informal word, and technical terms need to be used or created for the various types. Peter Daniels has offered ABJAD and ABUGIDA, but I think these are not formal terms

Incidentally, just because a writing system is complex does not mean there will be low literacy in the land. The Babylonian logosyllabary had hundreds of signs but a writer could get by with less than a hundred.

The Japanese writing system (actually more than one system, syllabic and logographic) is extremely complicated, and yet Japan has a higher literacy rate than France. Then there is the English logographic orthography

(Seed cede, supersede or supercede?)

What was the original form of each letter?

Which of the original signs (logograms, consonantograms) have disappeared over time?

2010-04-08T05:26:00.000-07:00

TIMNA INSCRIPTIONS

The copper mines at Timna (in the Wadi Arabah/Arava, in Israel) have yielded a number of West Semitic inscriptions, and here are some interesting and instructive examples. They assist us in solving the problem of the identification of Sh, Ss, and Q in the proto-alphabet.

ROCK INSCRIPTION

Vladimir from Riga visited Timna in January 2006, and saw this interesting inscription; he put it on his website (Photo 14).

In August 2009 Joseph Otto of Stonewatch reported this same inscription, and published this photograph of it; he would not reveal its precise location, but added that the Egyptologist Stefan Jakob Wimmer was working on it. It looks very Egyptian, with two 'cartouches', one showing an eye (of Horus?), and the other displaying a double serpent, protecting the sun, which could say Shimsh ('sun') in Canaanite, or simply be the letter Sh.

In the right-hand set of symbols, the circle under the eye (and its two lines) might represent the sun-disc. Or it may be a human head, R.

The two wavy lines symbolize water, and could the Canaanite MM (Hebrew mayim).

Is that a seated human person, or a human head (R) with a dot above it? As a logogram R'Sh ('head') it could say 'top-class' or 'prime quality' (as I have argued in two instances on the Wadi el-Hol inscription); hence it says "excellent water". On the other hand, if it reads M MR, it becomes "bitter water". The eye at the top could thus be a logogram, or a rebogram, standing for `ayin 'spring'; three examples of such usage can be invoked from the Sinai mining region.

The other set of symbols is puzzling: 3 horizontal parallel lines, 3 oblique lines, and a character resembling the Egyptian nfr symbol (the lower part depicts the heart), standing for goodness and beauty, and borrowed in the proto-alphabet for T.et, and in the syllabary for T.A, or as a logogram t.ab 'good'. The trio of strokes might represent the spinal column (the Egyptian djed, 'stability'), used for the letter Samek ('support'), though the fish-symbol is more often found for Samek, until the Phoenician alphabet settled for the column S (and then into the Greek alphabet for Xsi).

The cartouches suggest that an important person would be named in the text. But is this actually a 'sign' saying: "spring", "excellent water", "good support"?

As always, we cannot be sure about the writer's intended meaning. But on Vladimir's photograph there are more marks: possibly N (snake) and G (throwstick), and others below them, not completely in the frame. If we can read GN (gan 'garden') then we would have a counterpart for the Garden of the Sun at the Sinai turquoise mines (Sinai 353), and this could explain the sun-symbol here.

If this hypothesis is correct, the site should have an ample patch of ground for a vegetable garden, and be near the camp of the miners. The Sinai horticultural inscriptions were on the exterior wall of a mine, indicating that the garden plot was right there. If this supposition fails, a new context for this inscription must be sought. The possibility remains that it is marking a well, but again the feasibility of this idea needs to be tested by an examination of the site.

Stefan Wimmer has now provided a full description of the place and the text, in JOURNAL OF ANCIENT EGYPTIAN INTERCONNECTIONS (online, http://jaei.library.arizona.edu| Vol. 2:2, 2010| 1–12 pdf).

Stefan Wimmer's photographs show that there is ample space for an irrigated vegetable garden; and the inscription (its position is indicated by the white arrow on the left, and the seated man on the right, who is in a pose similar to that of the human figure in the inscription) is actually horizontal (not vertical, as other pictures of it may have suggested) and situated on a tabletop rock (about 2 metres high). Whether there was ever a spring on this spot is not a question I can answer.

Here is a copy of his drawing.

Stefan's interpretation is interesting and authoritative: the two ovals are not Egyptian cartouches enclosing royal names (they lack the mandatory horizontal line at the bottom); the writing is not Egyptian but belongs to the same family as the pictorial characters from the Sinai turquoise mines, the so-called 'Proto-Sinaitic' script, but I would refer to it as the West Semitic proto-alphabet or the Proto-Canaanite pictophonographic consonantary, represented by numerous inscriptions in Syria-Palestine, Egypt, and Sinai (including Timna and Har Karkom), from the Bronze Age.

The ovals could depict tablets (like the two tablets of Moses), and SJW proposes to find a word for 'tablet' in the one on the left; or else footprints, with the name of the person engraved on them (and this might make it a 'Kilroy was here' graffito).

The oval on the right has the following signs: `(ayin), Z (properly Dh), R (head), M M, and the human figure is a classifier borrowed from the Egyptian repertory, indicating a male person. So we would have a man's name: ` Z R M M.

The other oval has the sun symbol at the top (Sh, from shimsh 'sun', hieroglyph N6B, two uraeus serpents encompassing the sun, though here the sun-disc is omitted), and Stefan has accepted my argument (first published in 1988 and reiterated and reinforced ever since, but almost totally ignored by scholars in this field) for seeing hieroglyphs representing the sun (r`) as the source of proto-alphabetic Sh-signs. He compares the character appearing twice on the Wadi el-Hol inscription (see my notes on Sh-signs there) with two circles joined by a curved line (which he has always thought to be Sh, but without making this connection), and he sees that as a variant of what we have here: the two snakes without the sun disc. However, whereas here the serpents have heads of the same size, there the scribe has in each case made the circle on the right considerably smaller than the one on the left, suggesting that one represents the sun-disc and the other is the head of the snake. Thus, as I see it, there we have an example related to hieroglyph N6, with only one serpent, but here we have N6B with two. This is a crucial point for dating: the hieroglyph with two snakes (N6B) is perennial (known in the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom), but the single-serpent icon does not appear before the New Kingdom, and this means that the Wadi el-Hol inscription can not be assigned to the Middle Kingdom, where everyone wants it to be, so that it can maintain its supposed position as the oldest alphabetic inscription.

Now, the typical Sh-sign in the Sinai collection does not include the sun-disc, and because it curls round at each end, the two-serpent hypothesis seems to fit the case admirably, rather than seeing a head at one head and a curly tail at the other; N6 has a straight tail, and this does not appear on the Wadi el-Hol examples.

However, the disc is not always omitted, as shown on the inscribed Timna stone that I am examining here (see below): head, sun, and straight tail.

Or on this potsherd from the Valley of Queens in southern Egypt.

My reading for the two lines (right to left):
' M H T (maidservants), ' Sh T (women)
The lower line should be viewed vertically to see the ox-head (`aleph), the sun with a single serpent (Sh), and the cross (T).
(See Benjamin Sass, Genesis of the Alphabet, 1988, figure 286, and p.104, but he disallows this as proto-alphabetic, contra Leibovitch, Albright, van den Branden, and myself).

Then an example from Thebes (5th character from the left), which (although it is in a syllabic inscription, as ShI) seems to show how the form without the disc came into being.

(William Flinders Petrie, in the frontispiece of his book The Formation of the Alphabet, 1912 )

Of course, even though this Timna inscription could not be a hoax (see Stefan's arguments, p. 7-8), we might actually be looking at two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, and all this agonizing over the origin of Sh (which, incidentally, did not find its way into the Phoenician and Grecian alphabets) crumbles to dust. On the other hand, if it is correct, then all the speculative theorizing about Sh as a thorn and Sh/Th as a composite bow (following W. F. Albright, most recently in Gordon Hamilton's The Origins of the West Semitic Alphabet, 2006, 123-125, 231-244) collapses in ruins.

However, the three horizontal lines below the sun-symbol are not a mouth but a hand, in the simplified three-finger form often used for K; Stefan has observed (on the site) a line joining the three digits on the right, and this is included in his drawing.

Significantly, the failure to recognize the solar connections of the sign for Sh/S (cp Hebrew Shin/Sin) caused the exponents of the composite-bow hypothesis to read Th every time it occurred, producing Dh T B Th N 'the serpent woman' in Sinai inscription 351, instead of Dh K B Sh N M Sh 'this melt-furnace' (Hebrew kibshan 'furnace', with Shin; and mss 'melt', with Sin); the K has three fingers, pointing down. The same term reappears in other inscriptions, in a material context of metal-working equipment, and this is one of the keys to the decipherment of these documents.

Moving on, the sign on the bottom left is understood as L, a crook (like Hieroglyph S38 rather than S39 which is simpler, not curved backward), though it is inverted here; it is not so likely to be in imitation of V1, the coil of rope favoured by Hamilton (126-137).

Finally, the three oblique strokes are provided with a stem, and instead of making a connection with the Egyptian djed column (R11) and the letter Samek (as I suggested above), or interpreting it as another K, he invokes the hieratic version of V28 (ooo<) with strokes not circles for this double-helix sign. This is an original idea and worthy of consideration. However, there is a serious mistake here: although this hieroglyph stands for Egyptian Hh (dotted h), it does not have this value in the proto-alphabet, but Kh (see Hamilton, 57-60). He seems to imply that this is the sign used for Hh in Sinai, but not in Canaan. However, this character (a hank of thread or a wick) represents Kh in proto-alphabetic inscriptions in Egypt, Sinai, and Canaan, and also in the cuneiform alphabet, where Kh is a cluster of three vertical wedges, obviously based on this pictophonogram (see the Kh and Hh lines on my table, at the end of this article).

The resulting sequence is stated as Sh K L Hh (properly Kh).
The proposed interpretation is S´K L (L) Hh 'tablet-expert' (cp Hebrew s´kl 'have insight'; luah. 'tablet')
The difficulty is that the Ugaritic evidence clearly has LHh not LKh for 'tablet'. Nevertheless, there may be a way out of this dead-end: in the shorter 'linear' version of the pictorial alphabet the sign for Kh disappeared, and Kh coalesced with Hh, but in the shorter cuneiform alphabet Kh replaced Hh.
This inscription is presumably from the Ramesside period, when the Bronze Age is ending and the Iron Age is commencing, and things are in a fluid state in the evolution of the alphabet and the phonology of the Canaanite dialects.

This principle could be used to cover the Kh for Hh here in oval L, and the Dh for Z in oval R. The inscribed stone studied below has ShQL 'weight, shekel', but this should be ThQL in a Bronze-Age setting; but Th (breast) is the one that survives in the alphabet. This is a limited corpus to work with, but the Hh sign is lacking in it, and again this will be the one that remains, while the Kh (thread, wick) will disappear.

Now, it is a truism that only the writer of an ancient inscription knew what it meant, and I and Stefan have proposed two vastly differing interpretations. His was a typical autograph graffito: " `Az-romam the scribe". Mine was a notice concerning a spring in the immediate vicinity, and the state of its water.

SJW has achieved his reading by doubling the L, and for this he refers us to the sequence M'HB`L[T] on the Sinai sphinx statuette (S345), standing for M'HB B`LT 'beloved of Ba`alat'. But nobody ever mentions that the B (a square representing a house, bayt) has a dot in it, presumably indicating the double B (as in classical Hebrew writing).

The L here possibly has such a dot beside it, but so does the K. Now, a Hebrew root ShKK appears in the Flood story in Genesis (8:1): 'the waters abated'. When we add to this the fact noted by SJW (5b) that three parallel straight lines (instead of wavy lines, as in oval R) is the hieratic form of mw 'water', we have the waters abating here also!

The first thoughts I had on this inscription might merit recording here.

Allowing that the right side is telling us about a water-well (`ayin 'spring', M 'water'), the left side might contain a reference to an important piece of apparatus, namely a bucket for drawing water out of the well. The Semitic root is DL (Akkadian dalu 'draw water', 'bucket'). The L is on the bottom left, and the two oblique lines beside it may have joining strokes, making a door, hence D (Dalet). The top line of this trio could be a simple snake, N, preceded by K and Sh. The combination ShKN produces the root that means 'put, place' or 'dwell' or 'be present'. The word MShKN (used for the 'tabernacle' of the Bible, the tent where the Shekinah 'presence' of God dwells) is found at the camp site of the Egyptian turquoise expeditions in Sinai (S365). Here it signals the place where the bucket is to be placed after use.

If there is no possibility of a well having been situated here in the remote past, then this line of interpretation must be rejected. Would that the author of this puzzle had left the solution under the rock.

INSCRIBED STONE

Beno Rothenberg, The Egyptian Mining Temple at Timna (London 1988)

Plate 116 : 4 and 5

Sandstone pebble (6.5 x 7.5 cm) with engraved signs on both sides; unstratified (p. 268b)

This is possibly a weight, and indeed the word shekel (ShQL) appears on it, apparently. The Q (-o-) is in the middle of the object, on the first side. It is surely not necessary for me to go into a long defence of this identification, even though the handbooks on early West Semitic writing have overlooked it, and assigned the value q to the tied-bag sign, which is actually S.adey. Because S.adey and Qoph are relatively rare letters and difficult to identify, this school of thought takes the Hebrew name Qoph, meaning 'monkey', and turns the bag into an ape. However, Q survived (in the form seen here) in the old Arabian script; and moved into the Phoenician consonantal alphabet without the top projecting stroke (see the Q line on the table at the end). It represents a line (qaw), a cord wound on a stick, and it has an alternative form, imitating its borrowed Egyptian hieroglyph (V24, V25): an end of the cord pokes out at the top (see the table), and this is found on the sphinx (Sinai 345) from the Sinai temple of Hat-Hor (an earlier counterpart to the shrine at Timna); it has been unrecognized by previous observers (but note the dot in the middle of the main stem, and the other projrcting line on the left). This later form does not appear till the New Kingdom in Egypt (Late Bronze Age), and this should mean that the inscription on the sphinx can not be dated to the Middle Kingdom (Middle Bronze Age), as many have assumed. The example we see here seems to have only one projecting line at the top, though it is easy to imagine another one among all the marks. The development of the letter Q involves elimination of all lines above the circle, as in Roman Q. There is another example on the inscribed plaque, below (in an unusual horizontal stance).

The Sh sign is the sun with a serpent; the tail is on the right, and the head on the left (see the Sh/Th secton of the table, below). The presumed L stands next to the Q; it is a simple crook (see the L line on the table).

There is a fish below the Sh, which would represent S (not D for dag 'fish', as commonly supposed; D is from dalt 'door', and there may be one on the other side of the stone). To the right is a right-angle, presumably a boomerang, and thus G (gaml, not P).

On the other face, three signs are detectable. From the left: a door, D; an ox-head, 'alep; a hook, W, or a head, R (but the neck is too long), or another L with the top more curled than the other.

If the sequence is S G D ' L, then it can be analysed as SGD 'worship' and 'L 'El' (God), though a preposition l ('to') would be expected. As a guess, are these extra words somehow giving divine sanction to the trustworthiness of the weight?

INSCRIBED PLAQUE

Stone plaque from the Arabah
Photograph and drawing as reproduced by Sass (fig 276, 277)
See Sass, The Genesis of the Alphabet, p. 103 for information

Assuming that this is another West Semitic inscription, and giving credence to the drawing: the bottom sign is T (+), beneath N (nahhash 'snake'), then Q (qaw, cord wound on a stick, as on the stone, above); the most likely identity for the next one is Ss (s.irar, a tied bag, see the Egyptian original on the table, below); the wavy line is a short M (water), or possibly Th (breast); at the top we have a sign shaped like H, which is a late example of Z (not Dh). There are other possible letters above and beside this Z.

There are more marks to the left of this column of writing. Level with the Q is possibly an eye (signaling another spring, as possibly in the rock inscription above?).

The sequence of signs on the drawing would be: Z M Ss Q N T

In the light of the mining and smelting of copper that was done in this area, a connection could reasonably sought with the root ys.q (Y Ss Q, Ugaritic and Hebrew) 'pour' or 'cast' metal. If the MSsQ means "(place of) pouring" or "casting" (cp Hbr mus.aq), then NT could be analysed as a rebogram plus a consonantogram: NHhSh (the consonants of the word for 'snake') + T, producing NHhShT, "copper" or "bronze". If Z is 'this' (though Dh would be expected in the Bronze Age, but these mines belong in the Ramesside period, when some consonants are coalescing) we could interpret the statement thus:

Z MSsQ N(HhSh)T

"This is the copper-smelting (place)"

Incidentally, I trace the Z-sign to ziqqu 'manacle', and as a rebogram it can represent the root zqq 'refine'; this term appears in connection with refining gold on an inscription from Thebes (ostracon 4).

The snake rebus for copper (possibly also on Sinai 352) would show that the characters of the proto-alphabet could be used like Egyptian hieroglyphs, that is, as logograms and rebograms (rebuses).

CONCLUSION

These three inscriptions seem to be giving support to ideas I have been promoting for many years, notably that the proto-alphabet was in a way a simplification of the Egyptian writing system.

They also bolster my identifications of the controversial signs: there are two instances of the true Q (qaw, 'line', string on stick), and (on the plaque) one of them is right next to the false Q (tied bag) which is actually Ss, and occurs in the Sinai texts in such words as s.btm 'handfuls' (375), s.rp 'crucible' (372), s.rh. 'excavation chamber' (356), and ns.b 'foreman' (346, 349, 351). The choice made by Albright and his followers to read nqb 'piercer', supposedly meaning 'miner', instead of ns.b 'prefect', sent them off on a wrong track, on which they were compelled to overlook the occurrences of the real Q, in ql` 'inscribe' (376), qnt 'elegy' (363), nqy 'my offering' (345, the sphinx).

The confusion of the door as D (dalt) with the fish as S (dag 'fish' is invoked to justify it as D) can be refuted when both are found in the same text; there is a faint possibility of such an occurrence on the small stone, but a clear case is on the wall above Bir Nas.b, the well where water was obtained for the turquoise and copper expeditions, in the words DWT 'sickness' and 'S' (Asa) (Sinai 376).

One way of confirming that D is a door is by examining the rectangular shape it has in the cuneiform alphabet (see the full cuneiform table, and also the Canaan column of the table): D has 3 vertical wedges (the sections of the door) on 3 horizontal wedges (the door post); B, the square house, has four wedges, similarly arranged. Compare also the form for S, which has 3 wedges, representing the fish, very simply, with head and tail. Note that the alternative form of Samek (spinal column), which possibly appears in the rock inscription, also has a place in the cuneiform alphabet.

Comparing the cuneiform S. and Q, the Q has a horizontal wedge (note the -o- form on the plaque, above) with a type of wedge that usually represents a circle in the original pictogram (it is employed for the eye of `ayin); S. has two vertical wedges, representing the bag standing upright, presumably. Additional confirmation comes from the Arabian forms: Q has retained the cord-and-stick, and S. is the bag.

Sh (sun) and Th (breast) both have the wedge representing roundness; but Sh has 3 parts, for sun and serpent head and tail, or two snake heads; the form with two sun-serpents (N6B), seen on the rock inscription above (but with the sun-disc omitted), seems a better model for the typical form of Sh in the Sinai inscriptions, I would now say. Nevertheless, on the stone above we see a form of N6A, with one head and a tail. The 2 examples on the vertical inscription of Wadi el-Hol (shown on the chart) both have a small head and a large sun, and no tail. This version resembles the Arabian Th (o-o), and it appears that Sh and Th have exchanged places in the Arabian script.

Click on this table for an extra-large version

A darker version may be viewed here

2010-03-10T02:49:00.003-08:00

TWO GOLIATH OSTRACA?

Having already made a survey of the text on the ostracon from Khirbet Qeiyafa (or Sha`arayim, "Two Gates", and the object was discovered in a room attached to a gate, a gatehouse), I want to look again at the characters on that shard, in the light of what others have claimed to see there, and after further scrutiny of the various photographs and drawings now available here and there (pdf). The interpretation I will present here differs from those proposed in my earlier account: I am now contemplating the possibility (mentioned in passing there) that GL[ ] at the beginning of line 3 is the name Goliath.

At the same time, I would like to examine the Gath ostracon, which has been touted as "the Goliath inscription".
I will raise the possibility of the presence of S (Samek) in the text. S (Samek) can be a fish or a spine [ -|-|-| ], and the Izbet Sartah abagadary seems to have the fish. The oval character on Qeiyafa line 3 might be a fish (S); and it looks as if there is another S further to the right. The Gath inscription possibly has a fish lurking unnoticed in the second half of its line of writing.
With regard to Samek, here is a significant principle I have noticed: when the national scripts arose in the Levant in the ninth century BCE (Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Moabite), the telegraph-pole Samek (the Egyptian djed column, now recognized as a spine, the backbone that gives a person stability, the ability to stand up straight, hence West Semitic samk, 'support') became the standard Samek, and the fish (cp Arabic samak, 'fish') disappeared. Previously the spinal sign had been known on the Lakish dagger (as S), and in the West Semitic syllabary (as SA), but the fish had been ubiquitous (Canaan, Sinai, Egypt), and it represented S, not D (as commonly supposed, invoking dag, 'fish'). The Samek on the Beth-Shemesh ostracon occurs in SB' ("carousing", followed by BT YN, "in the winehouse"). However, the Gezer calendar and the Tel Zayit abagadary have the column with three crossbars for Samek.

Fishes (with fins and tails) are readily recognizable in the Bronze Age texts, but they are wrongly assigned to the D section on the tables of Benjamin Sass (1988) and Gordon Hamilton (2006); consequently these scholars (as also their teachers and their followers) can not give an instance of S in the Bronze Age: they will not even admit the Djed Samek on the Lakish dagger, because it has only two crossbars, though this is a possible form in the Byblos syllabic texts (as SA).

The door-signs (Dalet, D) are shifted to the Het box, and the real instances of Het (Hh, H.) are left dangling or placed in the house-category B (they are houses, but they have an additional courtyard, h.asir, hence H.).

They also choose the Sadey character (a tied bag, s.rr) as Q, overlooking the true Qaw (cord on a stick), and they seize on one particular form of K to serve as Ss (presumed to be something in the flora category).

They claim (preposterously) that there is only one Proto-Canaanite attestation of Sh (what I understand as a triangular D, in Sinai 357; eventually the triangle Dalet will become Delta); they mistakenly catalog the numerous Sh-signs as Th (the true Th, from Thad 'breast', occurs in the word ThLThT 'three' in Sinai 375); it will in time become the letter Shin, also encompassing Th.

They take all the bomerangs or throw-sticks (which properly represent G) and call them P, failing to recognize the cases where a mouth-sign stands for P

[This is my website so I can speak freely here: Sass and Hamilton are the ones who are always cited for reference, but in my opinion the S/D, Hh/D/B, /Ss/Q/K, G/P, Sh/Th confusion nullifies their system (which is largely borrowed from W.F. Albright); and neither has offered a "linguistic decipherment" (Hamilton), with readings of the texts, as is found on the Cryptcracker and Collesseum sites, and in my series of studies in Abr-Nahrain, 1988-1998.]

Other scholars do not notice fish-signs in Paleo-Canaanite texts, because they are observing them from an Iron Age perspective, whereas I am approaching them from a Bronze Age point of view, based on Proto-Canaanite texts. I would apply the term Proto-Canaanite to the West Semitic logo-consonantary (the proto-alphabet) as evidenced in inscriptions from the Bronze Age (before the 12th century BCE), and Paleo-Canaanite ('Old Canaanite') to texts in the stylized and simplified form of the script, which has the number of signs reduced to twenty-two, in the first period of the Iron Age (extending into the 10th century).

The Izbet Sartah, Beth-Shemesh, Gath, and Sha`arayim ostraca are Paleo-Canaanite (exhibiting 22 letters); the Qubur el-Walaydah bowl apparently has the signs for Sh and Th, and stands on the dividing line between Proto-Canaanite and Paleo-Canaanite.

For a survey of the range of signs employed over the centuries, a copy of my table could be useful.

In my previous study of the Qeiyafa text I catalogued the possible letters represented. Here I want to emphasize that the process of decipherment is expected to include a table of frequency of the letters in a typical text in the language under examination.

Here, then, is my list of the 22 letters in order of frequency based on Ugaritic texts and Sinai inscriptions, though not Biblical Hebrew (in which T is less frequent, and W is more prevalent):

L T B M R ' N K ` Y Sh/Th H D Hh/Kh P Ss W Q S G Tt Z/Dh

REVIEWING THE GATH OSTRACON

Having looked at the Qeiyafa letters closely for a long time, I have some ideas about what is on the similar Gath ostracon, and I have caught a fish (S), with two hooks (W) in its mouth (P), by hand (Y), and also an ox ('A) with a boomerang (G) and two crosses (T). The official reading of the text (BASOR 351, 54a) has seven letters, but I count ten (excluding a few marginal marks).

Instead of 'A L W T | W L T
let us try 'A Y G L W T | W S P T

Gordon Hamilton has released a preliminary account (p. 11-13) of his new study of the Gath ostracon:

http://bibleinterp.com/PDFs/SealOfASeer.pdf

He allows the existence of a supralinear G (which I would also like to accept), and so he reads 'LWT as 'LGWT; but, while muttering (n. 23) about "the sensationalistic connection" made with 'LWT and the biblical name golyat, 'Goliath', he does not see that the G could give us GLWT, a possible Philistine form of GoLYaT, and that is what I propose to do with it (that is, be sensationalistic).

Sequencing along such lines of letters yields all sorts of weird words and wondrous wisdom. Reading from right to left we see 'A, of the type found at the start of Qeiyafa lines 4 and 5 (refer to the drawing below), where the ox-head is inverted, like Alpha, though the original form is used at the end of line 1 and in the middle of line 2, and the reclining head appears as the first character in the text; remember, this scribe does not practise consistency but prefers variety. However, in the Gath text, if the incised line extending as far as the L is merely a "slip of the pen" (50b), and if we removed the crossbar of the 'A, then we would have a G (/\), and GLWT would do nicely for Goliath. On the other hand, if we accept the existence of the 'A, and consider the stroke as significant, combining it with the two parallel vertical marks pointing downwards at the right end and the oblique mark at the left end, then we have a typical Y (yad, arm with hand and elbow), similar to the Qeiyafa examples (in lines 4 and 5). We are told that T (+) is not possible here (50b), so 'AT "you" is out of the question; but 'AY could be "Where?" or "Woe" (as in Oy veh). If for some technical reason I am not permitted to have this Y (which stands out so clearly on red and black photographs alike), I will still be arguing for the text opening with the interjection "Woe!".

A possible letter G for Goliath is sitting above the L; it is a more obtuse angle than the 'A, and a believable boomerang (to be compared with the the G in the top left corner on side 1 of the Beth-Shemesh ostracon, and a whole armoury of them can be seen on the table). The head is thus separated from the body ... as happened to the giant in the story: young David severed Goliath's head from his corpse (1 Samuel 17:51). I am prompted to make such a silly suggestion because half a century ago, one of my Latin lecturers at Sydney University loved rehearsing such a line contained in some Latin poem (I would be grateful if any reader could remind me what it was). We may be dealing with black magic here: this could be an execration ritual (see further below).

The first Waw is not exactly the same as the second, and in the past, working only from drawings, I have thought that this was Y and the other was W; but having accepted the second sign in the sequence as Y (equivalent to the Sha`arayim Y), and admitting it is different from the long-stemmed Y of the Izbet Sartah ostracon, which is obscure, but apparently has only ) at the top, not \/, then I acknowledge it to be W, and allow GLWT to be a valid form for GLYT (Goliyat, "Goliath"), perhaps an Anatolian name *Gulwatta. Versions of the name are: Goliath (Greek, Septuagint), Gôlôt (Greek, inscription), Jâlût (Arabic). However, if we disallowed the first Y, this would still be a possible Y; but if the name has an Anatolian form in this (presumably) Philistine text, the regular change from w to y in Hebrew can be invoked to explain the difference.

The second half of the inscription ( after the separating stroke) could be a verb ending in -t, a possibility envisaged by the editors, and offering "interesting implications for furthering our understanding of the Philistine language" (BASOR 351, 59b). Judging from the interpretation proposed here (which is by no means certain), the language is the West Semitic dialect used by the Philistines, and seems to be the same language as found on other inscriptions from the time, including the Qeiyafa ostracon.

The initial W would be "and"; the verb is not LT but SPT. I arrived at this hypothetical reading from comparing the P in the word ShPTt ("judge") at the start of Qeiyafa line 2. The P is the remnant of a mouth: () becomes ( . The preceding letter would be the fish I mentioned earlier, apparently with a tail, not "most probably 'a slip of the pen' of the scribe", as the editors say (53a). Actually, it was one of the scholars who first edited this inscription (namely Stefan Wimmer) who taught me (in connection with the Shekem plaque) that what appears to be one letter may, on analysis, turn out to be more than one (two or even three).

SPT could be traced to two verbal roots: SWP 'end, perish'; SPH 'be taken away, perish'. The final -t marks it as 3rd person singular Qal perfect: "You are finished".

"Woe ('y), GLWT. And (w) you have perished (spt)."
As mentioned above, these words might be an execration, used in a ritual in which the bowl was first inscribed, and then smashed. The incomplete letters to the right of the text could suggest that the bowl was inscribed before it was broken, not simply the shard; and the incomplete characters could be part of the original inscription (indeed, Hamilton suggests they are the end of this same inscription). The past or perfect tense could be 'proleptic', anticipating his death through black magic.

However, given that the document was found in Gath, the city of Goliath (if that is who this GLWT really is), then this should not be 'sympathetic magic' but pure sympathy for the departed.

This is a rather terse elegy, but Gordon Hamilton (p. 12) has made the attractive suggestion that the text continued right around the bowl, when it was intact, and the marks to the right of the 'Aleph are the end of the inscription, thus making it much longer.

If we are to be scientific about this, I need to be the first one to try to falsify my hypothesis. Aren Maeir has responded to Gordon Hamilton's proposed G, affirming that it is not part of the inscription, because it was not deliberately inscribed; it is accidental not intentional. This would spell doom for the Y also, I presume. So we need to clean up the shard and remove all the intrusive material, which shows up so clearly on a white-on-black photograph the editors published (BASOR 2008, p. 49, fig. 8), and offered such interesting possibilities. But the universe is full of coincidences, as I always say.

And what about the fishy S? If we go to Stefan Wimmer's site:
www.stefan-jakob-wimmer.de/Philisterprojekt.html
we can see three helpful photographs, including this inverted one:
http://www.stefan-jakob-wimmer.de/img_4302.jpg

These photographs seem to show that the editors chose wisely in deciding that there are two examples of L in the text, and thus all four of the additional letters I proposed (G Y S P) are unlikely to be intended by the writer.

Hence we should read (from right to left) 'A L W T / W L T [ ... ?]
The final T (+) has a very short left arm, which could mean either that the scribe had not left enough space for it, or else it was originally complete when written on the vessel, but that part is now on some other remnant of the bowl, possibly with a longer line of text.

The one recourse for saving Goliath is to remove the crossbar of the A-sign (and the line it continues along, possibly continuing right through the L) and produce G L W T or GLYT (which I suggested in November 2005).

It would appear that the phantom of Goliath has been playing ghostly games to get our attention (Look, this is about me, so I have put another G in, so you can find me more easily); but he was a great celebrity, and it would be reasonable to expect that somebody in his hometown Gath wrote his name down somewhere; it seems that we have not found such a document yet, and we are still in the dark when we try to interpret this one.

REVISITING THE QEIYAFA OSTRACON

This new drawing of the ostracon from Sha`arayim (Khirbet Qeiyafa) differs in a few details from my earlier attempt at delineating the characters of its text of five lines (reproduced below).

The differences are based on closer scrutiny of the available photographs, and comparing the drawings of Haggai Misgav, `Ada Yardeni, and Gershon Galil; but none of us has achieved a complete and perfect reading yet.

It is generally agreed that each line of the text runs from left to right (the opposite of the order established later in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic).

Note my transcription system: ' or 'A ('aleph) ` or `O (`ayin "eye") Hh (H.et) Tt (T.et) Ss (Tsadey) Sh (Shin).

(1a) ' L T ` N [Q] [ ]
The important point in this is the replacement of Sh by N; I think it is equivalent to the N in line 4, not presuming an extra piece at the top, to make it a pair of breasts (Sh/Th), but accepting it as a snake (N); this would destroy the widely publicized ' L T ` Sh ("Do not do"), and the concomitant claim that the use of this root (`ayin Sin He) proves that the language is Hebrew; nor does it allow the tempting reconstruction T ` Sh Q, hence "Do not oppress", which fitted well with the idea of judgement in the next line. The N opens the way for 'LT as Elat "Goddess", and `N as from the root `anah "answer"; this would make it a plea for an oracle: "Goddess answer!". However, other possibilities are present. The 'curse' word (Hebrew 'alah) should be tried. The root `NQ has to do with neck and necklace; and the presence of the giant Anakim (`nqym) is looming; and there could be a Mem between [Q] and W, hence `NQM. Only one N appearing in a West Semitic text is anomalous, as N sits in the first half of the table of order of frequency (see above); so the acceptance of this N brings the total to 2.

(1b) W `O B D 'A [L] [ ]
The root `abad is certainly in evidence, either as a verb "serve" or noun "servant", followed by 'A[L] (El, God) it could produce "Serve God" or "the servant of God", preceded by "and" (W). I would find the same sequence in line 2a; and in line 5, I propose `OBDY "my servant".

(2) Sh P Tt [`O B [D 'A L M [T] [Sh P Tt
The root Sh P Tt "judge" was recognized at the beginning of this line when the ostracon was discovered; the second occurrence, at the end, was noticed by Yardeni and Galil. In each case the Tt is a cross in a circle, but each P has a different stance; and the second Sh has the \/\/ shape, whereas the first has the form like 3, which will eventually become Sigma. These are the only instances of Shin in the text, if N is accepted in line 1a; but its frequency is normally less than N (8th), with Sh in the middle of the scale (12th).

`O (circle with central dot) was resurrected by Gershon Galil; the D is my own reconstruction, from the W that others have seen; but Galil squeezes a small D into the space, using the left side of my D.
I have inserted T between M and Sh, allowing TShPTt 'thou shalt judge', but other possibilities remain. The MT has the scent of death about it, perhaps 'a dead man', or the noun meaning 'man' or 'warrior'.

It seems reasonable to accept with Galil that line 2 continues vertically into a space at the end of line 1, and the scribe has indeed made such a gap, by closing off the end of the writing in line 1. Earlier, based on Misgav's drawing, I proposed ZH, but I will now try TY, or YT (so Galil, YT[M] 'orphan'), with a possible G also in the picture (observable through wishful thinking) and producing GTY. I have said before that this YT could complement the GL (at the start of line 3) and produce Goliyat (again with his head separated from his body, lest they be united again and he rise up from the dead).

(3) [?] G L [ ] B ` L S [R S [. . . .]
There may be a letter before G (Galil has a small W). The GL[. .] begs us to add [YT] (GLYT, as in the Hebrew Bible) or [WT] (GLWT, as on the Gath shard). (Notice that there may be a reason why the signs in the previous line (2) and the following line (4) have faded.) B`OL is 'Lord', perhaps the title of a deity (Ba`al, Hadad) or of a high-ranking human. This is where the fish apparently makes its appearance, in a pair, separated by a faded character consisting of a dot and a vertical stroke; following Galil, I would choose R (rosh 'head), with a triangular head, rather than Q, with a rounded top. This could be the sought-after srn, 'tyrant', the title of Philistine rulers; but SRS could be srys, a borrowing from Akkadian (meaning the one at the head [of the king]), found in Hebrew and Aramaic; it can mean 'eunuch', or 'high official'; David had some of these (1 Chronicles 28:1); the prophet Samuel warned Israel that if they accepted a king his srysym would receive their tithes (1 Samuel 8:15); in the Joseph story we meet "Potiphar, srys of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian" (Genesis 39:1). These are the four letters I would like to place in the gap at the end: P L Sh T ('Philistia); or even P L Sh T M ('Philistines'). There is yet another possibility instead of SRS, but it is so startling and controversial that I will save it till the end. But I will reiterate here that the missing YT for GLYT could be found in the far right corner (if we reject my hypothetical G (making gty 'Gittite'). I will also comment on this at the close of this essay.

(4) 'A [Q] M W N Q/R M Y Hh D M L K
This time I will retain MLK as 'king' (or 'kingship', less likely), and not have DM LK as 'blood for you'. 'A[Q]M is again "I will arise"' W is 'and''; NQM is generally accepted as the 'avenge' root, but the sign could be R (RM root 'be high'); YHhD could be 'the community' or 'together'. The Hh is not sure; it might be an unusual B, but Misgav considers Hh to be possible; it seems to revert to the original form, of a house with a courtyard.

(5) 'A R/Q M `O B D Y [Ss [D Q T
The last word is (I still maintain, without certainty) SsDQT 'justice' or 'righteousness', here apparetly used adverbially; the Ss is not clear; the D looks like a G, but Misgav's drawing accepts it as D; the Q has a round head (rightly); the T is not in doubt; whether the dots after it are significant remnants of signs is dubious. Ss and Q are at the far end of the frequency table, and R is among the most frequently occurring, so 5 instances of Q and only one R would be a suspect situation; therefore preference should be given to `ARM in this line and perhaps to NRM in the preceding line. Incidentally, I have set aside the possibility of two small letters (MM, MSh, ShSh) above the D of `BDY 'my servant', as shown on Misgav's drawing; but they may exist.

As a prelude to my interpretation of the text according to the Goliath motif, I offer these extracts from the Bible.
"Joshua wiped out the Anakim .... No Anakim (`nqym) were left in the land of the children of Israel; they survived only in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod" (Joshua 11:21-22).
"The champion, the Philistine from Gath, Golyath by name, came up out of the ranks of the Philistines, and spoke ... "(1 Samuel 17:23).
"The Philistine cursed (qll) David by his gods" (1 Samuel 17:43).
"David said to the Philistine: ... I come to you in the name of YHWH of Hosts" (1 Samuel 17:45).
Through his servants Saul said to David: "The king (mlk) desires no marriage gift but a hundred foreskins of Philistines, so that he may be avenged (nqm) of the king's enemies" (1 Samuel 18:25).
"YHWH has said to David: By the hand of my servant (`bdy) David I will save my people Israel from the hand of the Philistines and all their enemies" (2 Samuel 3:18).
He lifts (mqym) the weak (dl) from the dust, he raises (yrym) the poor ('bywn) from the ash heap, to let them sit with nobles, and inherit a seat of honour" (1 Samuel 2:8, Hannah).

(1) The cursing ('lt) of the Anak (`nq) and the servant of God (`bd 'l):
(2) The servant of God (`bd 'l) has judged (sh-p-tt) a warrior (mt); he has judged (sh-p-tt) the Gittite (gty?) (3) Lord (b`l ) Goliyath (GL[..]), the general (srs) [of Philistia?] ([PLShT]) .
(4) I will arise ('qm) and (w) together (y-hh-d) we will avenge (nqm) (or: exalt, nrm) the king (mlk).
(5) I will exalt ('rm) my servant (`bdy) justly (ss-d-q-t).

Synopsis: the writer is apparently a prophet speaking in the name of God (a nabi', a religious role that was practised at that time, 1 Samuel 3:20, 10:10); an oracle announces the defeat ('judgement') of one of the giant Anakim (from Gath?), namely Lord Goliyath, at the hands of the servant of God (and this could be David, 2 S 3:18). God says he will rise up, and together with his assistant he will avenge the king (presumably Saul) of his enemies; God will also exalt his agent justly.

I don't think too much sleight of hand was needed to achieve this result. It certainly belongs in the category "sensational" ("causing or intending to cause great public excitement"), and when the dust settles and the shouting is silenced we might be left with a contemporary account of the proverbial, legendary, and indeed factual encounter between David the shepherd-boy from Bethlehem and Goliath the giant from Gath.

The document (in an Israelite dialect of Canaanite) exults in the victory.
(1) The cursing of the Anak and the servant of God:
(2) The servant of God has judged a warrior; he has judged the Gittite (?) (3) Lord Goliyat, the general [of Philistia?].
(4) I will arise and together we will avenge (or: exalt) the king.
(5) I will exalt my servant justly.

Of course, this may be a case (two cases already) of mistaken identity; and Goliath, we are told, had a brother, among the giants in Gath (1 Chronicles 20:5).

We can suspect that the YT of GLYT is placed well away from the GL of line 3, in the space in the far corner, between the ends of lines 1 and 2, with an 'apotropaic' purpose, lest all the king's men try to put him together again.

Finally (this is one of those surprise endings coming up, a twist in the tail): since this Israelite scribe did not supply a copy of all the letters of his alphabet (as on the Izbet Sartah shard), we cannot be certain that this writer would not have used the spinal-column for Samek, if this rather rare letter was required (note the late position of S on the spectrum of frequency provided earlier), then maybe we could dispense with the two fishes in line 3 (SRS) and read them as D, and the reconstructed R could simply be W (Y-shaped), and thus we would have DWD (David). Somebody is going to make this connection eventually, so I may as well sneak in first. This makes the illegibility of the signs at the end of line 3 even more frustrating.

An inscription from the time of King Saul mentioning Goliath and David side by side? Fantastic, I say, and you can take that word in whichever direction you wish.

Remember: to achieve this result a mass/mess of largely illegible writing had to be probed with an unseemly amount of guesswork; never believe what you read in blogs.

2010-03-10T02:33:00.001-08:00

QEIYAFA OSTRACON INSCRIPTION

This large potsherd was found on the floor of a room at Khirbet Qeiyafa, overlooking the road to Philistia and the Elah Valley, SW of Jerusalem, and is now in the Israel Museum. Aren Maeir made an explosive announcement about the find on the 11th of September 2008 ["9/11"], and I rushed in like a fool and proposed Socoh (Joshua 15:35; 1 Samuel 17:1) as the identity of this fortified town, because it would have been a good observation point when the Philistines gathered in the valley between Socoh (belonging to Judah) and Azekah. Gershon Galil has argued for Neta'im. Nadav Na`aman has chosen Gob. However, it seems to have been securely identified by Yosef Garfinkel as Sha`arayim [pdf] (Joshua 15:36; 1 Samuel 17:52), the site of the confrontation of David and Goliath, and the point from which the Israelites chased the Philistines back to Gath and Ekron. The name Sha`arayim means 'two gates', and this distinguishing feature has been found in the ruins.

The ostracon has an inscription of five lines, written with ink, which has faded almost to illegibility, but spectral imaging techniques [also as pdf] (as used on the Dead Sea Scrolls) have brought most of the letters back to life, though identifying each one is still not easy.

Photographs and drawings have been posted here, and Bearman and Christens-Barry include several in their study of spectral imaging.
Haggai Misgav is the official epigrapher; he presented his drawings and readings at a meeting, and the proceedings have been published in Hebrew (October 2009); I have obtained a pdf copy, and I am very reliant on the picture and drawing provided by Professor Misgav. Aren Maeir was there and he reported on the progress of the decipherment; with some trepidation he has attempted a fractured translation of the text (it possibly includes a King of Gath named Yasad, but we all practise wishful thinking).

Contributors to the discussion were: `Ada Yardeni (I will follow her perception that Sh P Tt is found at the beginning and end of line 2, but I don't see it as a draft for a monumental inscription); Aaron Demsky (it is a list of social roles); Shmuel Ahituv (does not accept the reading SRN, a title of Philistine rulers, at the beginning of line 5, and I concur).

Line 5 is definitely the bottom line, as shown by the space below it.

Is the uppermost row of signs really the first line of the text, or has other writing been broken off? Notice that the tops of some letters have been lost, and possibly even one or more lines of writing (declaring "Thus says the Lord of Hosts", for example?).

As with the Izbet Sartah ostracon, I would plump for a coherent statement, not a collection of words or letters as merely a student's exercise (Aaron Demsky).

Here we have a known script and a known language, so why is there no credible 'decipherment'? My readings of Bronze-Age inscriptions (consonantal and syllabic) are often dismissed as 'fanciful' and 'bizarre', but I will make an attempt here, and also examine the work of Gershon Galil.

Getting into the mind of a writer of a text is always difficult; even more so when the handwriting is peculiar and illegible at some points. And this is not monumental script, but a personal style which does not aim for consistency (all the examples of 'alep have a different shape and stance).

My table of signs (not including the characters in the Qeiyafa text), which differs at vital points from the usual charts found in handbooks on the alphabet, is available here. My identification of the Qeiyafa letters will be based on that formulation of the evidence.

In the presence of such chaos, we always need a large text to work on, one which includes all of the letters, so that we can distinguish them from one another, and also a copy of the set of signs the scribe is using (the Izbet Sartah writer does provide that, but confusingly incompetently!). The Qeiyafa inscription does not fit either criterion. Nevertheless, its inventory is almost complete, as I tentatively see it (22 characters would be expected at this stage, not the 27 employed in the Bronze Age).

My table of signs (not including the characters in the Qeiyafa text), which differs at vital points from the usual charts found in handbooks on the alphabet, is available here. My identification of the Qeiyafa letters will be based on that formulation of the evidence.

'(alep) (ox-head) 5 times (all different!)

B (bayt house) 4x

G (gaml boomerang)1x at the start of line 3

D (dalt door) 4x

H (E) (small one at the end of line 1? large one in line 3?)

W (waw hook) 2x or 3x

Z (ziqq manacle) (1x at the end of line 1?)

Hh (H.et) possibly in line 4

Tt (T.et, cross in circle) 2x in line 2

Y (yad hand and forearm) 2x or 3x (each different)

K (kap hand) 1x (end of line 4)

L (Lamed) 5x (all different)

M (water) at least 4x (but similar to Sh)

N (snake) 1x in line 4; 1x in line 1

S (Samek) a fish or a spine [ -|-|-| ]; fish (S) 2 x in line 3?

`(ayin) 4x

P (mouth) 2x (line 2)
Ss (Sade) 1x (line 5)

Q 2x in line 5; 2x in line 4? 1x in line 1?

R (human head) possibly the Q in line 4

Sh (Shin, only two waves) 3x

T (cross) 2x (1, 5); 1x (3)?

[-1?] (One or more lines here originally?)

[1] ' L T ` Sh [Q] W? ` B D ' [L?] : Z/T? H/Y?

[2] Sh P Tt . B W ' L M [? ] [Sh] P Tt

[3] G L [Y/W?] [ T?] B ` L S? R? H/S? [ ] Y?

[4] ' [ Q] M W N Q? M Y B/Kh? D M L K .

[5] ' Q w/y M ` B D m? sh/m? Y : Ss? D Q T .

Notice that the direction of writing is from left to right (dextrograde), which is the opposite of the order for Biblical Hebrew, and also for ancient Phoenician, Hebrew, and Moabite inscriptions (right to left, sinistrograde); but there is general agreement that this is the way this text runs. The pattern for this is set in the Izbet Sartah ostracon: it also has 5 lines of text; the fifth has the letters of the script (from 'Aleph to T) running from left to right, and the other 4 lines are obviously dextrograde also (lines1 to 3 leave a space at the end; 4 runs over into the end-space of 5).

However, Christopher Rollston has said on rollstonepigraphy.com:
"Prior to the rise of the Phoenician script, Northwest Semitic inscriptions could be written sinistrograde (right to left), dextrograde (left to right), or boustrophedon (one line left to right, and the next line right to left). Of course, sometimes NWS inscriptions could even be written vertically. Many people seem to be reading the Qeiyafa ostracon as dextrograde in its entirety. At this juncture, I would note that I am not convinced this is correct, or at least not consistently the case."

In this respect, the first thing that the scrutinizers noted in the inscription is the Hebrew word ShPTt (Shin Pe Tet, root meaning 'judge') at the beginning of line 2; and then MLK ('king') at the end of line 4; and `BD ('servant') in line 1 (and also 5). This is an interesting collection of words (though Rollston points out that none are exclusively Hebrew), since the ostracon is said to date from the period (10th century BCE) when Israel was changing from rule by 'judges' to monarchy. All these possible terms disappear if the lines are not running from left to right.

We can see these three sequences of letters clearly enough, but, as there is apparently no definite separation of words (unless the single dots function in this way), they could be false constructions. The judge seems safe at the start of a line, but the servant could lose his position and disappear into the mystical cloud of unknowing if the sequence in the middle of line 1 was actually `ShN W `B, signifying 'smoke and cloud'. The king could likewise come to a bloody end if we divided line 4 thus: '... my vengeance (NQMY) in blood (B-DM) for you (LK)'.

There is a pantheon leaping out at us in the same way: the storm-god Baal (B`L) in line 3, the mysterious Molek (MLK) in 4, the mother goddess Elat ('LT) in 1, the chief god El ('L) or all the gods ('LM) in line 2. Again, they may be figments created ingeniously by imagination, but vanishing when the true reading of the text is established; but we can see from this cursory examination that what the author actually meant may never emerge from our speculations.

Try the first line, beginning with 'LT as Elat, the goddess, the consort of the chief deity El (she was known by name as Lady Athirat in Canaan, or Asherah in the Bible). This comes as a shock, in a document from ancient Israel, but it is what the prophets were constantly complaining about; and more than one instance of the expression "YHWH and his Asherah" has come to light in archaeological research. Now, the following two signs could be taken as logograms (a common practice in ancient writing systems, and I have resorted to it in my reading of the Izbet Sartah inscription): `ayin as 'eye' and the Sh as Shemesh, producing 'the eye of the sun'. In the Bronze Age the proto-alphabetic sign for Sh was the sun (the disc with a protecting serpent), and the Babylonian sun-god Shamash (the sun being the all-seeing eye, with the stars as the spies by night) was the minister for justice in the celestial government. But in the Iron Age such logographic use of the signs eventually ceased. Notice in passing that Canaanite Athirat became Hebrew Asherah, because the sounds th and sh were not distinguished in the Hebrew script, but it was the sun-sign that dropped out, leaving the breast-sign (thad/shad 'breast') as Shin (and Sin); so it is difficult to make the Sh stand for the sun. Note also that the Canaanite feminine ending -at became -ah in Hebrew, and the last letter on this inscription is -t, and I will interpret it as the ending of a feminine singular noun, showing that the -at was still retained at this stage in the development of Hebrew. Note that the Valley of Elah was where the confrontation took place between David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17:2); Elah would presumably refer to a kind of tree; and 'âlâh is a word for 'cursing', which would be another possibility for 'LT here.

From the outset there was agreement that a likely reading of 'L T `Sh was as a prohibition, with Hebrew 'al (not) and the verb `asah (make or do), hence "Don't do". But what is not to be done? Can we get 'service' or 'worship' out of the `BD? Possibly. But there is a suspicion that a Q is lurking there, producing the root `ShQ, denoting 'oppress'. Thus we would have 'L T`ShQ `BD: "Do not oppress a servant" (but there is a W before the `BD). The groups of dots that appear on the drawing perhaps indicate pauses in poetry; or they may be the residue of letters. Whatever the case may be, noting that at least four of the letters have lost their upper portion(where the ostracon has been broken off after the signs were written), I suggest that the two dots at the top, following the `Alep ox-head, are the remains of another L, producing the word 'L, 'God'.

Accordingly, disregarding the apparent punctuation dots, and assuming that the stroke preceding the `ayin is Q, with its head lopped off, we could read this sentence:
[1] 'L T`ShQ `BD '[L]
"Do not ('L) oppress (T`ShQ) the servant (`BD) of Go[d] (`[L])."
We might compare Psalm 119:122: 'Be surety for the good of thy servant; let not the insolent oppress me'.
However, if the upright stroke is W, and the Q has been washed away (but there are some traces of Q), then we have:
[1] 'L T`Sh[Q] : W `BD 'L
"Do not oppre[ss], but (W) serve Go[d]."

My next step in the decipherment process is to focus on the final sequence of four letters in line 5: T (a cross), preceded by Q (a circle on a stem), D (having precisely that shape, though the lower arc has faded), and Ss (Tsadey, S.), hence SsDQT. My proposed origin for the letter Tsadey is a tied bag, with the string showing at the top [ o( ], to go with the word s.irar ('tied bag'). On the abagadary (abecedary) in line 5 of the Izbet Sartah ostracon, the Ss has a stem with an obtuse angle on top (the bag has been deflated, and flattened); and at the beginning of line 3 the example has a right angle. This may well be what we are looking at here; the drawing by Misgav does not have the angle at the top, the enhanced photographs seem to show it as possible. Line 3 on the other ostracon is also useful for distinguishing Q and R; there are two passive participles qualifying the Hebrew word for 'clay' (t.t.): 'dried' (s.mq), 'polished' (mrq), referring to the writing surface of the potsherd. The two instances of M are not quite clear but they are both vertical forms, as in the Qeiyafa text. The two examples of Q are not clearly distinguishable from the R, in line 3, and also on the abagadary on line 5. In the beginning, R (Resh) was clearly a human head with its neck shown (see the table), but the Izbet Sartah scribe has put the head as [o] or [0] on a neck consisting of a single stroke. Q was a string (qaw) wound on a stick [-o- or -o( ], but stylization removed the projections at the top, causing confusion with the W [-o ] representing a hook (waw), which had to open out at the top [-( ], now looking like the developed form of Ss (Tsadey).

Accepting the sequence at the end of line 5 as SsDQT, we have a noun meaning 'justice', which goes nicely with the 'judge' (ShPTt) of line 2. Returning to that section of the text, I suggest this reading:

[1b - 2] Z H || Sh P Tt . B W ' L M [Sh] P Tt
"He is the Judge; he has come for judgement."
If the two letters Z and H really are there, is ZH 'this' (or zu hu, 'this is he')? Or do they belong to the end of line 2?
Sh-P-Tt could be a noun or a verb ('he has judged'). The noun (or participle) is applied to YHWH; example (referring to El and Elohim: shophet. s.addiyq 'a just judge' (Psalm 7:12).
BW' ('came'), same root bw' as in later Hebrew, but the W would presumably be pronounced (bawa'a?); or it could be imperative mood, "Come!".
"O Judge, come for judgement."
LMShPTt would be the preposition l ('to/for') with the noun mishpat. (Ugaritic m-th-p-t.) 'judgement'; a difficulty is that the space is rather wide for one letter (Sh), but the writer may have wished to 'justify' the line of script; and the \/\/ (not in the vertical stance of the Sh at the beginning of the line) is discernible on the enhanced photographs, and acknowledged by `Ada Yardeni and Gershon Galil.

[3] G L [ ] B ` L D/S H? Y?
GL with a space allowing room for YT, or merely T: is this another Goliath inscription? (Gershon Galil finds a little YT up in the top right hand corner; we could connect it with the GL here; remember that young David separated the giant's head from his body; 1 Samuel 17:51.) However, T is a distinct possibility here; and whereas Hebrew and Greek text have Goliat, a Greek form Golot is found, and Arabic Jalut.
Or could this be a defective form of G'L 'redeem' and 'avenge'? If so, it goes with the NQM of line 4.
Or gl 'rolled' (root gll), or gl 'cairn'.
If it is Hebrew giyl ('rejoicing' or 'triumphing'), I could invoke the vague H as a logogram (standing for hll) as 'jubilating' or 'celebrating' (the original pictogram depicted a person in a Halleluyah kind of pose); this parallelism would make it poetry, and perhaps we are looking at an uncanonical psalm. But the combination `LS corresponds to a rare root meaning 'rejoice' or 'enjoy', and a triple dose of merriment is being enjoyed: "exult, rejoice, celebrate".
Or G (gu 'voice') could start a sentence : "The voice of the heart (LB) has gone up (`L)".
GL as a verb might come from the root GLH/GLY, 'reveal', and the text becomes a revelation.
B`L would be the subject of this verb. This could be Baal (Hadad) the weather god, functioning together with the chief God El; or it is simply a title (like El 'God') applied to Yahweh, 'Lord'. This is not attested in the Hebrew Scriptures, but Hosea 2:18 possibly implies such usage (calling YHWH 'Baal').
S: if it is a fish, it could act as a rebus for SMK 'support' (rare as a noun, but could be a verbal noun, 'supporting'), and the H would be the suffix 'his' (though there seems to be a dot between the two characters).
[ ] Y [ ]: The context as reconstructed here, a hymn or an oracle, suggests LY 'to/for me'.

Accordingly, one interpretation of the line could be:
[3] "The Lord (B`L) has revealed (GL) his support (S[mk]H) to me ([L]Y)"
Another possible way to go is:
[3] "Exult (GL), with (B) rejoicing (`LS), celebrate (H[ll]) for me ([L]Y)"

Moving on now to the next line:
[4] ` [Q] M W N Q M Y Hh/B D M L K

I have already stated the possibility that the king apparent at the end of the line (MLK) should be deposed, and the last two characters might then be LK 'to thee', and DM 'blood'.
'[Q]M. The idea of placing Q in the gap came to me from line 5: it is apparently the root qwm 'arise' in each case, and the initial 'alep points to 1st person singular imperfect: 'I will arise'. The speaker would be God.
NQMY. The Q does not have a perfectly rounded top, like the two instances in line 5, and R is a possibility; the M is perhaps short of waves, and might be Sh, producing NRSh.
B. This would not be S (fish), and B seems possible, even though the other 4 cases are more triangular than rectangular; but eventually I will argue that it is Hh (Het).

[4] "I will [ar]ise ( 'QM), and (W) my vengeance (NQMY) for you (LK) will be with (B) blood (DM)"

[5] ' Q w/y M ` B D Y m sh Ss D Q T

That is one solution I offer to the puzzle of a line that apparently includes some subscript and superscript characters.
'QY/WM. The first letter could be R rather than 'alep, but not S (fish), and the proposal to read SRN (title of Philistine ruler) is hard to accept; the horizontal W or Y needs to be incorporated into the word, as a consonant; it could be a causative verb form (Pi`el or Hip`il):"I will raise up" or "establish" or "confirm".
`BDY. Only the Y is complete, but the `BD can be reconstructed on the basis of its occurrence in line 1; here it is "my servant".
MSh. This appears over the presumed D. "My servant Moses (Moshe)". Is this the one and only Moses, the archetypal prophet (2 Kings 28:8, Numbers 12:6-8)? A minimalist view would read MM or ShSh, to save embarrassment; if it is MM then we have the 'waters' of the prophet Amos (5:24) like which 'justice' (mishpat. and s.edaqah) should roll down (gll).
SsDQT. This was mentioned earlier in the discussion, and also in the preceding sentence; variously translated as 'righteousness' or 'justice'. There is no preposition with it (perhaps the verb governs two objects).

[5] "I will confirm ('QYM) my servant (`BDY) [MSh] in justice (SsDQT)"

The hypothesis I propose is that this is an oracle document, and, as with the utterances of the prophets of ancient Israel, the deity is quoted amid the declarations of the seer, as a 'servant' of YHWH.

The first three lines, then, are a statement of the prophet: first quoting an injunction from God concerning the 'servant' himself (line 1); then a warning that God is coming in judgement (line 2); and God has expressed his support for his agent (line 3). In the remaining two lines, God affirms his vindication of his 'servant', possibly named Mosheh, or possibly not named at all.

Note that the words being proposed here (roots `ShQ, ShPTt, SsDQ, NQM, SMK) occur together in Isaiah 59:11-17 and 63:1-7, where God comes in bloody judgement (Gath is also mentioned but only as 'the winepress' which he treads in his wrath).

A note about the script and the language. There are no matres lectionis (W and Y indicating vowels) to assist us. No definite article (ha-). The conjunction wa 'and' is present, apparently.

There are some other possibilities based on logography, on the one hand, and the various identifications of signs made by Haggai Misgav, which I have not explored thoroughly; but it should be noted that I am coming to this task from my knowledge of the pictophonographic logo-consonantary (the proto-alphabet) in the Bronze Age, whereas others are working back from the Phoenician and Hebrew consonantal script of the Iron Age.

GERSHON GALIL : TWO ATTEMPTS

Gershon Galil has issued a 'decipherment', the same as mine (on the theme of justice in society) but entirely different (in the interpretation of the text).

Gershon Galil's drawing of the Qeiyafa ostracon

Courtesy of the University of Haifa

This is how I would transcribe what is depicted on the drawing, and accepting his identifications of the letters.
[.....................................................................]

[1] ' L T ` Sh W ` B D ' [T]

[2] Sh P Tt [`] B [D] W ' L M [N] [Sh] [P] Tt (Y T [M])

[3] [W] G R [R] B ` L L? [R] [B] [D] [L] [W]

[4] ' [L] M [N] Sh? Q M Y B D M L K

[5] ' [B] Y N ` B D Sh? K? G? R T [M] [K]

Transliteration (with added vowel-indicating consonants Y, W, H; and separation of suggested words)

"אל תעשו (כזאת) ועבדו את|2?| ה
"שפטו עבד ואלמנה שפטו יתום|3| וגר"
"ריבו עולל ריבו דל ו|4|אלמנה שקמו ביד מלך"
"אביון ועבד - שכו, גר - תמכו"||

[.......................................]
1′ ‘l t‘ś w‘bd ‘[t .......]
2′ špt. [‘]b[d] w’lm[n] špt. yt[m]
3′ [w]gr [r]b ‘ll rb [d]l w
4′ ‘[l]mn šqm ybd mlk
5′ ‘[b]yn [w]‘bd šk gr t[mk]

English translation of the deciphered text:
[.........................................................................]
1' you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2' Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3' [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4' the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5' Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.

If I had produced the same solution as Galil, these are problems I would be raising to myself:

Is there a line or more missing at the top? (Apparently Galil thinks so, hence the [.........].)

Is this poetry? There are hints of parallelism, lines having two halves; and the verbs in line 5 being preceded by their objects would be poetic style. In the press-release here, GG uses / in his transliteration, indicating verse, presumably.

However, my reading of it has five lines of prose, each line a separate sentence, not running over into the following line (well, perhaps once; see ORPHAN below).

Gershon Galil has found a context (justice in the gate of the city) and a theme to go with it: giving justice to the widow, orphan, infant, sojourner (stranger, resident alien), poor, needy, and slave.

However, his significant nouns are somewhat suspect. Actually, none of them appear in my interpretation of the text.

*WIDOW: 'LMN (twice: 2 'LM [N], 4 '[L]M[N?]) It should not be 'widow' but 'widower' or 'widowhood'; the feminine -t should be present (Ugr 'lmnt, Phn 'lmt /Akkadian almattu), but in Hebrew the -t might have dropped off by the 10th C BCE. Around 700 BCE the Siloam tunnel inscription has HNQBH, 'the boring'. I can not get any help from the Izbet Sartah ostracon or the Gezer calendar on this point.

When did the -t fall away, and the -h replace it? It continued in Phoenician through the Iron Age, and in Arabic for ages.

*INFANT: `LL, though I have taken the second L to be a fish (the first has an opening, the second is closed); the sequence B`L is not accepted as Ba`al or 'the Lord'.

*ORPHAN: YT[M]. This reading is achieved by using two small vague characters at the end of line 1 as a continuation of line 2, and assuming the M was broken off. I have very tentatively suggested ZH 'this' (following Misgav's drawing) and connect it to the beginning of line 2, not the end.

*POOR : DL, found in an illegible section of 3.

*NEEDY : ' [B]Y?N?, at the murky beginning of 5. My 'QYM ('I will establish') is also speculative, but it has a better basis in the enhanced pictures.

*STRANGER: GR (twice, 3, 5). Misgav has the supposed G in line 5 as D (the boomerang G becomes D a door in the finely detailed blue picture available for this corner of the text). My interpretation has trouble finding a case of R, and this is a problem. My reading here is GL. The difficulty is that the first GR is the opposite of the second (which is not certain). The Rosh has always been known to be a human head, and it is never upside down. Galil has it in four different stances, including two inverted forms; but the same is true of 'Aleph (head of an ox), and B (a house), at the hand of this scribe.

*SLAVE: `BD (2, 5) a third occurrence of the sequence `BD (1) is taken to be a verb 'serve, worship'; the one in line 2 is created by filling the spaces on each side of B; the one in 5 is plausible, but I read `BDY ('my servant'); and Galil omits the MSh (Moshe?!) or MM that appears above D on Misgav's drawing

*KING : MLK (end of line 4). The reading MLK is fairly certain, and only I have deviated from allowing it to be 'king'. Galil's insight is seductive for BD MLK, 'at the hands of the king', with the ruler (who sits in the gate dispensing justice) as BD is known from Ugaritic as b-yad "in the hand(s)". However, preceding B and following his "ShQM" there is a clear Y that is passed over by Galil (unless he has emended YBD to read BYD).

The definite article h- is not in evidence (hammelek in Classical Hebrew), and we would expect it on all these nouns; so it has not been invented yet.

One of my proposals for line 4 is: '[Q]M W NQMY BDM LK : "I will arise, and my vengeance (will be) with blood for thee".
Any syntactical objections to this? In the Bronze Age the 1 p possessive pronoun suffix would only be shown in oblique cases (-aya for accusative case). On the bilingual sphinx from Sinai we may read: Z NQY L B`LT "This is my offering to Ba`alat". Is the noun in the accusative case, after the verb "is" (understood)?

Where in the text is YHWH "[the Lord]", who appears in the translation of line 1? That stray Y in line 4 might be an abbreviation of the divine name, but this would emerge as: "Rehabilitate Y[hwh] at the hands of the king" (maybe that could be said); Galil does not have an object for the verb, so he reintroduces "[the poor]" from the previous line).

Galil states that this inscription is the earliest known Hebrew writing. However, in my opinion, the oldest-known Hebrew text is the Izbet Sartah ostracon, apparently written by an Israelite named`WP BN H.G (Ben Hagai).

If the writer of this Qeiyafa/Sha`arayim document could see the Colless and Galil interpretations of his text, he might well say that he agrees with the sentiments expressed in their readings, but that is not what he wrote and meant.

On a sobering note, the directors of the expedition (Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor) have placed on the website an open letter of disapproval to Gershon Galil. I sincerely hope that I have not offended; I did make e-mail contact with Yosef Garfinkel, inquiring about access to more photographs (which have now appeared on the website, but are only referenced here, not reproduced); and I informed him of my own attempt at reading the inscription, on this Cryptcracker site; I have mentioned all the scholars known to me as having made contributions to interpreting the text.

Gershon Galil has now issued a new reading especially for the ANE2 internet group, through Victor Hurowitz (and if possible, I would like Gershon to read my response, in which I express empathetic understanding but reluctance to accept his whole package).

So, instead of working further on my essay "The Canaanites in America", based on a new inscription, I have obediently followed his instructions:

http://www.palarch.nl/2009/12/gregory-bearman-william-a-christens-barry-2009-spectral-imaging-of-ostraca-%E2%80%93-palarch%E2%80%99s
"Just open the link and download the PDF file. The colored picture presented by Bearman in p. 12 is excellent!!! Please enlarge it to 200% or 400% and you will see clearly all the letters and the ink traces of my following new reading...."

I spent another abundant surplus of hours looking once again at all the pictures, including the blue ones on p. 17-18 (I admit I had never examined any of them enlarged before now, but I have always used a magnifying glass); it was a profitable exercise, as I gained a bit of confidence in some of my own readings, and thought of a plethora of new possibilities, and retained sympathy for some of his (but certainty may never be achieved by any of us).

I want to say that Gershon Galil's reading of the text is coherent and attractive, indeed it is highly seductive (and some might say solidly Bible-based, as I try to make mine, too); but I have already raised some problems, and I will give them further consideration here.

This is his earlier attempt:

[.......................................]
1′ ‘l t‘ś w‘bd ‘[t .......]
2′ špt. [‘]b[d] w’lm[n] špt. yt[m]
3′ [w]gr [r]b ‘ll rb [d]l w
4′ ‘[l]mn šqm ybd mlk
5′ ‘[b]yn [w]‘bd šk gr t[mk]

English translation:

[............................................................]
1′ you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2′ Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3′ [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4′ the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5′ Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.

This is the revised version.
[.......................................]
1′ 'l t‘ś w‘bd '[t .......]
2′ špt. [‘]b[d] w’lm[n] špt. yt[m]
3′ [w]gr [r]b ‘ll rb [d]l w
4′ '[l]mn nqm ybd mlk
5′ '[b]yn [w]‘bd šk gr t[mk]
[................................................]
1' do not do (it), but worship [the Lord/ or him/ or me].
2' Judge the [s]la[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3' [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the poor and
4' the wid[ow]. Avenge (the pauper's vengeance) at the king's hands.
5' Protect the p[o]or [and] the slave / su[pport] the stranger.

I will point out the changes and make responses along the way:

-1] ............................
We might have expected a preceding "Thus saith ..." introducing the persons involved in the text.

Line 1] 'L T`Sh W`BD '[T....]
GG: "Do not do (it), but worship [the Lord/ or him/ or me]."

The imperative mood has been softened;
'(it)' is presumably referring to an action mentioned in a previous line, now lost.
Some of us have thought that ` S(h) might have been ` Sh Q 'oppress', which fits nicely in the context, and looking at the 'big picture' I can now see a Q in the gap. (Is this an occasion for shouting Eureka or Halleluyah, or should I remind myself to get checked for cataracts or spots on the retina?)

More options for the object of the verb ('oto, otiy).
It occurs to me that 'otiy ('me') could have been created by adding the small (alleged) TY at the end of the line, and this could also be ' T Y (short for Yh or Yhwh). But he has used that for YT[M] 'orphan' (in the next line). I had thought (following Misgav's drawing) that they were Z and H, and was pleased that these two letters were included in the text. However, TY/YT seems a better reading.

*BC: "Do not oppress, but serve G[od] ('[L])
Can I make that say: "Do not be an oppressor, but a servant of God"?

Line 2-1c-3a] ShPTt [`]B[D] W'LM[N] ShPTt || YT[M] || [W]GR
"Judge the [s]la[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an] [and] the stranger".
So, 'judge' means 'give justice to', not 'bring to justice' (a reminder here that I see another 'justice' word [SsDQT] at the very end of the last line).
The re-occurrence of ShPTt at the end of the line is surely right.
Notice a case of ShPTt twice in one verse:
"Thou hast done my judgement ... judging with justice" (SsDQ) (Psalm 9:5)
There is space for [`] and [D] in the proposed [`]B[D] 'slave', and as it is present on line 1, and apparently also in line 5, it is plausible here. But I have been uniting them as referring to a particular "servant of God", possibly a prophet or ruler.
Accordingly: "The servant has judged, he has come (BW') for (L) judgement (MShPTt)".
But with Galil, we have a sequence W'LM[N]ShPTt , possibly meaning "gods ('LM) have been judged (Nip`al)", as Yhwh does, of course: if I refer to Psalm 82:1-8 for this concept, it has God ('LHYM) judging in the midst of the gods ('LHYM); and he orders them to judge 'weak' (DL) and 'fatherless' (YTWM), and 'poor' ('BYWN, all three without H, definte article), all words that Galil seks to find here.
Compare: "Arise, LORD, ... let the nations be judged by you'" (Psalm 9:20)

But the widow he includes here is problematic to my mind: 'LMN should be 'widower'; 'widow' would be 'LMNT; but if the feminine -t ending has fallen away by this time, and no compensating -h has replaced it yet, then 'widow' may be possible. A solution would be to find a T in the space between M and Sh, and read 'lmt, as in Phoenician (cp. Akkadian almattu); but I cannot see this working at the start of line 4.

For YTM 'fatherless' there is no M to go with YT (assumed to have been broken off at the top of the shard).

The W for 'and' , at the start and end of line 3, are by no means obvious; still, they may not be necessary if this is poetry.

Regarding GR ('sojourner, stranger'), we have to accept an absolutely abnormal R: an inverted head with neck, indeed, two of them, facing each other, the first a roundhead, and the second a cavalier (I am listening to Rosenkavalier Act 2.1 as I write this) according to Galil's drawing. And there is another one further down the line, each making RB (not 'great' or 'plenty', but 'plead for', 'get justice for' DL, 'the poor'). I would think the third one could be R.

4] ‘[l]mn nqm ybd mlk
the wid[ow]. Avenge (the pauper's vengeance) at the king's hands.

Galil has now changed Sh to N, giving not ShQM'rehabilitate' but NQM 'avenge', which is the likeliest choice, though not certain; but the previous N, for '[L]M[N?] is quite unlike this, and so the 'widow' must bow out. YBD MLK (read BYD?) is supposed to say 'at the king's hands'. Looking at all the photographs, the B seems to be Hhet (as suggested on Misgav's table of signs); its body is rectangular, while all the others are triangular; and the curved projection seems to go right round and join up, thus making the original picture of the sign: a Canaanite house with a courtyard (HhSsR), and not many people realize that.

Accordingly, my choices are '[Q]M 'I will arise'; 'and avenge' (W NQM, 'infinitive"?) or 'and we will avenge' (n(n)qm, but this suggests it might be from the same root qwm as `qm at the beginning of 4 and 5); YHhD MLK 'the community of the king'; yakhad 'unity' as 'community' is well represented in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Essene writings), and is there an echo of Deuteronomy 33:5, 'And there was a king (mlk) in Yeshurun (Israel), with the gathering together of the heads of the people, the community (yakhad) of the tribes of Israel'. Is the ruler (MLK) Yhwh or his earthly viceregent, there and on our ostracon?

Once again, with all its improbabilities, and in spite of my earlier suggestion ["my vengeance will be in (b) blood (dm) for thee (lk)']":

4] "I will arise and together we will avenge the king."

5] '[b]yn [w]‘bd šk gr t[mk]
Protect the p[o]or [and] the slave / su[pport] the stranger.
Briefly, 'ebyon is impossible; 'QM is possible; `BD is safe, but ShK is problematic (Sh is actually a good Y, though it is inverted in comparison with the Y above it in line 4); the K at the end of line 4 does not have a tail; I strongly support my reading SsDQT ('justice' or 'righteousness') against GR T[MK]; the additional letters are not really there, though a Y might fit (giving 'my justice').

5] "I will establish/avenge my servant (with) justice" (noun in objective case, as adverb,'justly').

You see what glorious untenable magic utterances can be derived from a text that is unpointed , "unmothered" (with no matres lectionis), undivided (no separation of words), and untidy, with only the slightest sleight of hand?

But this is not my last word on the subject. I have a different trick to play with another card up my sleeve: Goliath's curse.

Sincerely and as seriously as I am ever able to be,

Brian Colless
Massey University, Aotearoa/ New Zealand

Note that I have not seen the official edition:

Khirbet Qeiyafa Vol. 1. Excavation Report 2007–2008
Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor
XX + 304 pages, 21 x 31 cm, c. 350 illustrations, 94 pages with color photos
ISBN 978-965-221-077-7, $72 ($54 to members of the Israel Exploration Society)
Orders: Israel Exploration Society, E-mail: ies@vms.huji.ac.il

Chapter 14. The Ostracon (Haggai Misgav, Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor)

14.1. Introduction 14.2. Terminology 14.3. Chronology
14.4. The Script 14.5. The Text
Chapter 14A. Further Observations on the Ostracon (Ada Yardeni)
Chapter 15. Imaging the Ostracon (Greg Bearman and William A. Christens-Barry)
15.1. Introduction 15.2. Imaging Techniques 15.3. The Results

2010-03-09T03:35:00.000-08:00

INSCRIBED WEST SEMITIC STONE SEAL

This interesting seal was found in 2008/9, and Olaf Sprenger, has kindly provided photographs; the signs have been inked to allow recognition, and an impression has also been provided. The inscription is strangely ambiguous: at first glance I took it to be the Cretan script known as Linear A. The first character on the left is an open `ankh (the Egyptian symbol for 'life'), which is ZA in Linear B, and presumably also in Linear A (from which Linear B was created). At the other end we appear to have KE; then YA (a door, though it could be MO); next, two examples of SA (cuttlefish); I pass on the subsequent sign or signs: KE YA SA SA ... ZA (or vice versa).

On the other hand, it could be West Semitic: not the proto-alphabet (the `ankh is not in its inventory) but the syllabary (in which the open `ankh stands for H.I/HhI/KhI).

Looking at my drawing of an imprint of the seal, all the characters can be identified as Canaanite syllabic (or logo-syllabic, as the pictophonograms could also represent whole words).

NU: the character (and it looks Chinese!) depicts a bee (nubtu).

DA: a door (daltu).

BU BU: two reeds (bunduru).

'A: this might be two separate syllabograms (RI, and DI?) but it seems to be the ox-head ('alpu) with horns, though lying on its side, as it often did in the early Canaanite alphabet (or consonantary) in the Iron Age, until the Greeks turned it upside down as Alpha.

HhI: the `ankh (representing the top vertebra of the backbone), going with h.iwwatu, 'life'.

NU DA BU BU 'A HhI or

HhI 'A BU BU DA NU

What sense can be made of this? Several possibilities can be thrown at it. DANU as the tribe of the Danites, or the place Dan, or the verb 'judged', or daltunu 'our door'; 'ABU 'father', or 'ghost'; 'AHhI 'my brother'; root NDB 'volunteer'; personal name BUDANU, and this offers:

"Life! Father Budan."

But in the opposite direction, DABUBU might be dabb 'a bear'. Could that be a bear's head below the line of writing? How would the bee (NU) fit into the picture (bears and honey bees are thought to have connections).

It may be a personal name.

Nudabbu'ah.i

Nadab is a Biblical name; Nadubum is an Amorite name.

Taking 'ah.i as 'alpu (rebogram for 1000) and H.iwatu (logogram 'life' ), then it might correspond to Hebrew lekhayyim:

"Nudabbu, a thousand lives"( reincarnation?!)

Better taking 'a as 1st p. sg. prefix and Hhi as logogram for verb 'live'

"Nudabbu, I shall live"

NDB is connected with generosity and making free-will offerings; bu' means 'come'; hence "Life-bringing offering"?

Turning to Babylonian for enlightenment, there is abubu 'a flood'; a root dbb meaning 'speak', 'litigate', 'call to account', hence (with NU for passive voice):

"My brother is called to account."

If the line with a possible hook on the end is not the doorpost but an arm, then we have dayinu, 'judgement' or 'judge'?

Or we take DANU as dannu, 'strong, mighty', then:

"Life! The mighty flood."

The bear idea is attractive, and it is could be a personal name with a blessing ( "Nudabbu, I shall live"), but I will just have to keep trying till I discover an interpretation that rings true.

2010-01-16T02:33:00.000-08:00

ARABIAN SCRIPTS

This table of signs attempts to show how the northern and southern Arabian scripts (consonantal alphabet) developed from the West Semitic (Canaanite) proto-alphabet (consonantary).
To see an enlarged version, click on the photograph of each section (and a printout can then be made, if desired).

On the right-hand side, the original characters are shown, with arrowheads pointing to Arabian letters which may be derived from them.

On the left-hand side, the columns exhibit a selection of North Arabian letters (D indicates early Dadanitic, Dedanite) and South Arabian signs (S is for Sabaean).

The middle section shows forms of the Phoenician (Phn), Aramaic (Dan stela), and Moabite, of the Iron Age, alongside Dadanitic letters; this demonstrates the improbability of the Arabian alphabet having been based on the Phoenician consonantal alphabet in the Iron Age.

The general table below shows the whole range of the development of alphabetic scripts in the Bronze and Iron Ages, from borrowed Egyptian hieroglyphs to Greek letters.
Click on the image to see a very large version of the table.

Source for the forms of the Arabian letters:

Michael C. A. Macdonald, Reflections on the linguistic map of pre-Islamic Arabia, Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 11 (2000) 28-79

2009-12-20T15:46:00.001-08:00

WADI EL-HOL PROTO-ALPHABETIC INSCRIPTION

[V] "First-class (R) feast (MShT) of the celebration (H) of `Anat (`NT). 'El ('L) will provide (YGSh) [H] plenty (RB) of wine (WN) and victuals (MN) for the celebration (H). We will sacrifice (NGTh) for her (H) an ox (') and (P) a prime (R) fatling (MKh)."

These are my own drawings, but the original photographs are freely available on the internet: the vertical one (V) here, and the horizontal one (H) here.

These two inscriptions are among the most intriguing discoveries of recent times: they show us the alphabet as it originally was, pictographic, with an ox-head (A), a human head (R), an eye (`Ayin), a mouth (P), a boomerang (G), and many more picture-signs. They were found by Yale Egyptologists John Coleman Darnell and his wife Deborah, on a desert road near Thebes (Luxor), on a rock-face in the Wadi el-Hol ('Terror Gulch"). When they were first announced (New York Times, 13th-14th of November 1999) it was claimed that they were the oldest known alphabetic texts. However, other examples had previously turned up in Sinai and Syria-Palestine, and also elsewhere in Egypt, so the competition for being the earliest is fierce. Notice that I have registered these as Thebes 8 and 9, because other cases of proto-alphabetic writing had already come to light in the region of Thebes in Upper (Southern) Egypt, but these have been ignored in books written about the origin of the alphabet.

I began commenting on the the Wadi el-Hol proto-alphabetic material immediately after the first newspaper reports appeared (ANE forum), as it provided an opportunity for testing my own table of signs, constructed on the foundation of my readings of the Sinai inscriptions (Colless 1988 and 1990). Since then I have put a number of postings on the internet (on the ANE [Ancient Near East] discussion group).

An encyclopedia article is available on the subject (not written by myself, please note, and much of it is now consigned to the underworld of the discussion), which includes an outline of my views (based on my ANE internet postings) and a table of the original letters of the alphabet (according to my understanding, showing the Egyptian hieroglyphs that were borrowed to create the letters). My own table of the development of the signs is available on the web, and at the end of this essay, below.

What follows here is the culmination of my musings on the identity of the various signs, including a suggested translation of the inscriptions.

Actually, I think this is a case of 1 + 1 = 1 : there is one proto-alphabetic inscription, running down then across to the left (so it is 1 x 1 = 1). In my interpretation they talk about the same thing: a celebration for a goddess, and at the join the text has: [V] ... God will provide ... [H] plenty of wine ....

Before we embark on decipherment, we always have to remind ourselves that only the person who wrote a particular proto-alphabetic inscription knew what it said and meant (what he/she meant it to say, with no separation of words, and no vowels registered, only consonants).

But first we need to identify the letters: a controversial procedure, and a daunting task. We begin with the vertical sequence of signs [V1 - V13]. Actually the characters move obliquely leftwards, presumably making their way to link up with the horizontal text [H1 - H16].

However, this inscription is accompanied by a drawing (on the left of H), which must be included in the discussion. I have already ruminated over this image elsewhere on the web, but it comes down to this: while this figure certainly resembles the Egyptian sign for 'life' (`ankh), it is better to see it as a goddess; the deity TNT (Tannit) is represented by a similar symbol in later West Semitic iconography (with forearms raised), and the name TNT is already found on a Bronze Age statuette from Sinai (347, in the temple of the turquoise miners at Serabit el-Khadim).

SINAI 347 TNT

The title given to the goddess in that setting is B`LT, 'the Lady', and she is identified with Egyptian Hat-Hor, as shown by the equivalent Egyptian and Semitic inscriptions on the sphinx statuette from that shrine (Sinai 345). Another representation of her is found on the front of a cuboid statuette, with B`LT (possibly) written beside it (Sinai 369); she has a triangular body; but her arms are not outstretched, as here; and she has her hair curling at the ends on each side of her face.

SINAI 369 Ba`aLaT

Hair is difficult to find on this figure from Thebes, but curved lines on the left hand (right side of the figure) might be the curl; incidentally, there seem to be facial features (eyebrows, eyes, mouth), and if so, it would not be an `ankh-sign.

This person has a crook-like object hanging from the left hand (and I have been tempted to include it in the inscription, as a letter); it is probably hieroglyph S29, a piece of folded cloth (standing for s in Egyptian writing). Gardiner notes that it is often seen in the hands of statues, and was probably used as a handkerchief (as with trumpeter Louis Armstrong and tenor Luciano Pavarotti). Presumably it shows that the person is important.

Another goddess-name found in Sinai is `Anat (Sinai 527), known from the Ugaritic myths as having a close relationship with Ba`al (his 'sister'), and therefore possibly to be identified as Ba`alat.

SINAI 527 `aNaT (eye, snake, cross)

As I see it, the name `Anat (`NT: eye, snake, cross) appears next to the handkerchief (V6-8).

Moving now through a survey of all the signs:

V1 (Darnell 2.1 m) M
No problems here: this is the Egyptian water sign (n), and it yields M acrophonically from West Semitic words for water (mu, mayim). There are two more examples (Darnell says three) in the horizontal line (H5, H14, but not H10).
V2 (D 2.2 th) Sh
Great uncertainty here: for Darnell and his team (and also Hamilton) this is a "clear and unambiguous" case of the Egyptian hobble-sign (standing for the sound tch, and conventionally transcribed as underlined t); and yet it is admitted that it has "an odd vertical orientation" and it is "shortened from its normal length"; in addition, both cases of this letter (V2 and V11) have a larger circle on the left, whereas the standard form has two small circles, one immediately above the other and almost touching each other; therefore the hobble is not a good candidate. When I first looked at it, I immediately compared it to the sign for Sh. It had long been my opinion that in the three West Semitic scripts (syllabary, consonantary/ proto-alphabet, and cuneiform alphabet) the word for "sun" (shimsh) had been the acrophonic agent for Sh: as a circle, or sun-disc with the uraeus serpent guarding it, or simply the snake without the disc (see examples on my table). Here (V2 and V11) the serpent has no tail, but the larger circle would represent the sun and the smaller circle the head of the snake. Darnell compares what we see here with South Arabian Th [o-o], and rightly so; but what must have happened in the borrowing of the proto-alphabet in Arabia is that the breast-sign (\/\/ from Thad 'breast', sign 10 on the horizontal inscription) has been used for Sh, and the sun-sign for Th. However, here we see a form of hieroglyph N6 (with the short tail omitted); but Alan Gardiner (who catalogued the characters of the Egyptian writing system, and was the first scholar to notice the connection between them and the letters of the alphabet) has N6 first appearing in the New Kingdom (Late Bronze Age), but Darnell argues that the Hol inscription belongs to the Middle Kingdom (Middle Bronze Age). More about this later.
V3 (D 2.3 t) T
The letter T (see also V8) is a simple cross (plus sign +, sometimes a multiplication sign x), and it goes by the name Taw, which means an identification mark, or the signature of an illiterate person. Here Darnell tacitly admits that no corresponding hieroglyph can be found, though Hamilton tries to find its origin in Z11 (apparently two crossed planks, but not a taw). I think T, W, and Z did not have an Egyptian original.
V4 (D 2.4 r) R
This is a human head, and (beyond controversy) it is known to represent the consonant R, after the word ra'ish or rêsh, meaning 'head'. There are two other examples, at the beginning and end of the other line (H1, H16). No facial features are shown (in contrast to the Sinai examples with hairline indicated), but we may assume that all three heads are in profile, not front or back view. All are different, and this is not helpful to the view (strongly maintained by Darnell, and Hamilton) that an Egyptian prototype is being copied faithfully; rather it seems that to write the letter R you simply drew a man's head.
V5 (D 2.5 h) H
There are three examples of H (Darnell accepts V5, H7, H11 as H) pictograph shows a person dancing (but, in a perhaps misguided endeavour to find a perfect match with an Egyptian hieroglyph, Darnell wants it to be "a seated man with hand to mouth" or even "a seated child" making the same gesture). But, as with R (the head), all three examples are different. My opinion has long been that the figure depicts a person jumping for joy, or dancing in celebration, and the Semitic root hll (as in Halleluyah) is involved (specifically the word hillul 'celebration'). Typically both forearms are raised and pointing to heaven (as in H7, corresponding to Hieroglyph A28, 'jubilation') but one arm may be up and the other down (as in H11 and here, V5, more reminiscent of A32, a person dancing, likewise denoting joy and jubilation). Ultimately, when the body has dropped off, this became E in the Greek alphabet. Note also that inverted examples can be found, with the person standing on his hands or head (Sinai 358, like Hieroglyph A29).
V6 (D 2.6 `) `(ayin)
The guttural consonant ` (named `ayin, and thus indicating its origin in an eye), appears only once in the inscription (H13 is not an eye but a mouth with two closed lips, and so P).
V7 (D 2.7 w) N
Uncertainty descends again, but my choice is for a snake, either a viper or a cobra; both are found representing N (from nakhash, 'snake'); in my interpretation H3 is the example of W (Darnell says it is L), and there are three other snakes (H4, 6, 8) all of them erect, or else turned sideways to fit the text into the available space, as with the M (H5, 14; contrast V1), the P (H13, mouth), the Th (H10, breast). The snake here (V7) could depict a cobra with its neck and head, but lying on its side, to conserve space, whereas the upright cobras in the other line are normal. An analogy of N with a straight vertical body and a head occurs on the Gezer sherd. Eventually the snake will assume the shape of N in the alphabet.
V8 (D 2.8 t) T
The second of the two instances of T (see V3 above).

A horizontal line runs below the T. It could be a simplified snake-sign (another N). Or it is a divider, and in my interpretation it separates the heading (V1 - 8: `Anat celebration first-class banquet) from the main statement (V9 - 13, H1 - 16, describing details of the celebrations).

V9 (D - ) Y
Darnell and his team have overlooked this character, and they do not show the dividing line, either; but Hamilton has both on his drawing, and he opts for Y, as I do. Y is usually a hand with its forearm (yad, or yod), viewed from the side, while K (unfortunately not present in this text), still known by the name Kap ('palm of the hand'), shows fingers (three or more).
V10 (D 2.9 p) G
Darnell and Hamilton do not accept this as a boomerang, and hence as G (from gaml, 'throwstick'), but follow the erroneous line that it represents P (pê), a corner (Hieroglyph O38, a right angle, a corner of a wall). For my part, the true P is H13, a mouth. The other G is H9, and neither of them is a right angle. Both could well represent a bend in a wall, and the fact that they have an open end suggests continuation of a wall; but they may also be showing the blade of a boomerang, viewed from above.
V11 (D 2.10 th) Sh
This is a counterpart to V2 (the sun with its serpent).
V12 (D 2.11 ') '(alep)
The ox-head is the sign for the glottal stop ('), and it finally emerges, upside down, with its horns as legs, at the beginning of the Greek alphabet, as the vowel A, named Alpha (from 'alep, ox). An interesting feature is that in this example, and its twin (H12), the mouth is distinctly marked, and this detail is not found on any of the examples from Sinai, as far as I can see. The fact that the human mouth (H13, P) has an unusual lip line supports my unfashionable understanding of it as P.
V13 (D 2.12 l) L
There has been general agreement from the outset that this a case of L, and that in combination with the preceding 'Alep it forms the word 'l, meaning 'god' or 'the god El'. However, there is doubt whether it represents a shepherd's crook (Hieroglyph S39), as I and others have assumed, to go with the name of the letter, Lamed, from the root lmd, learn, teach, train. Darnell and Hamilton connect the sign with Hieroglyph V1, a coil of rope; this could likewise be connected with training animals, and the possibility is that they are allographs, graphic alternatives (as opposed to graphic variants, meaning different ways of drawing the same character). Be that as it may, this would be the only case of L in the inscription, though Darnell and Hamilton have H3 also as L; Darnell's drawing shows it as a clear counterpart of V13 (though inverted), with an opening; but Hamilton and I see the head of H3 as closed, and for me, that means it is W.

H1 (Darnell 1.1 r) R
See the note on V4, and compare also H16.
H2 (D 1.2 b) B
This is the only instance of B, and the form is slightly unusual; for one thing it is turned on its side (like several other letters in the line, see the note on V7 N), but it is from this version that the Greek Beta will be made. The character represents the ground plan of a simple dwelling (bayt or bêt, house), usually a square, normally with a gap for the entrance (Hieroglyph O1), but sometimes a porch is added. The sign we see here is like Hieroglyph O4, a field-house, or reed-hut,
H3 (D 1.3 l) W
The sign for W is rare but it is usually a circle on a stem (-o), the same as Q in its later development, but Q is -o-; Darnell has V7 as W (N in my view) and this (H3) as L; but as noted under V13 (L), the sign here has a closed head, and should not be L (as either a crook or coil).
H4 (D 1.4 n) N
This is an upright snake (nakhash) and therefore N; also H6 and H8; see the note on V7.
H5 (D 1.5 m) M
See the note on V1, and compare also H11 and H14.
H6 (D 1.6 n) N
See the note on V7, and see also H4 and H8.
H7 (D 1.7 h) H
See the note on V5, and compare also H11.
H8 (D 1.8 n) N
See the note on V7, and see also H4 and H6.
H9 (D 1.9 p) G
See the note on V10.
H10 (D 1.10 m) Th (Hamilton th/sh)
This would not be M, because it has only two angles; the three instances of M (H1, V5, V14) have three or more waves. It represents female breasts (thad), and is the source of Phoenician and Hebrew Sh (covering Th and Sh together), and as we can see from this example, it will become the Greek letter Sigma. See V2 above for the Sh-sign.
H11 (D 1.11 h) H
See the note on V5, and compare also H7 and H11.
H12 (D 1.12 ') '
See the note on V12.
H13 (D 1.13 sh) P
This is a good example of a human mouth (pu) representing P; it is in a vertical stance, but the lip line (unique among the few attested cases) makes its identity clear; see under V12 for the point that the ox-signs also indicate the mouth, an unusual feature.
H14 (D 1.14 m) M
See the note on V1, and compare also H5.
H15 (D 1.15 kh) Kh
This is a double helix, and it possibly represents a skein of thread (khayt 'thread') or a wick of twisted flax (kharam, Hamilton); the Egyptian hieroglyph stands for Hh [h.] not Kh [h_].
H16 (D 1.16 r) R
See the note on V4, and contrast H10 (Th).

TRANSCRIPTION
Vertical: M Sh T R H ` N T Y G Sh ' L
Horizontal: R B W N M N H N G Th H ' P M Kh R

TRANSLATION

VERTICAL
M Sh | T R H If we divide this sequence into two words, we have Moses (MoShe) and the Law (ToRaH). This is a seductive reading but quite impossible. We can play with the many possibilities, but I have been saying right from the start (November 1999) that the first word on the down-column is M-SH-T (the predecessor of Hebrew mishteh, banquet, symposium, from the root Sh-T-Y 'drink').

Support for this 'drinking-party' interpretation can be found in the Egyptian graffiti from the same area, apparently referring to holidays with drinking parties for the goddess, as reported by Darnell; there it was Hat-Hor, here it is the West Semitic goddess `Anat, named in V6-8 (`NT), and depicted with her handkerchief.

The intervening R and H are puzzling. A solution would be to interpret them as logograms, that is, the head says ra'ish (not simply R) and the jubilater stands for hillul, 'celebration' (not just H). In Hebrew the word ro'sh ('head') can also mean chief, top, first, and beginning. So, R H could say 'beginning of the celebration'; or the head could modify the feast as 'first', or 'top'.

Putting it all together, one possible translation would be:
"First-class banquet for the celebration of `Anat".

However, the literal meaning of m-sh-t- is 'drinking place', and, in discussing the details of this site, Darnell (2002, 134-135) suggests that this could have been an official "drinking place" for the consumption of wine and beer in the celebrations for the goddess. This idea is supported by my reading of this inscription; indeed it seems to provide verification of my interpretation of the sequence of signs. The occurrence of 'plenty of wine' at the start of the horizontal line gives additional confirmation.

Accordingly, an alternative translation needs to be offered:
"Drinking-place for the super celebration of `Anat"

Y G Sh ' L
The sequence 'L was immediately recognized as 'god' by all who saw the inscription, and as probably indicating the chief god 'Il, or 'El in the Bible. In the past I have noted that GSh could be a word for 'army' (found in Arabic and Hebrew), and this suits the known circumstances of soldiers stationed on the desert road from Thebes; hence "the army of the god 'El".

Another possibility lurking there is: "the voice (gu) of (sha) God ('il)" .

However, the whole combination could be a personal name, Yigash'el (like Yisra'el), the signature of the writer.

Nevertheless, sense can be made of YGSh as a verb from the root n-g-sh 'approach, draw near'; in the h- causative form, and with the n dropped by assimilation to g, it could mean 'bring in, present'. An example is found in Genesis 27:25, where Jacob brings (wygsh) game for his father Isaac to eat, and wine (yayin) to drink (root sh-t-y, as in MShT above).

"El will provide ...." (The objects of the verb can be found in the next line)

HORIZONTAL
R B W N M N H

The across-line begins with RB WN 'plenty of wine'; the RB corresponds to Hebrew rob, 'much, plenty', and WN goes with Ugaritic yn and Hebrew yayin, which would have developed from an earlier form *wayn (difficult to document, but found in Arabic as wayn 'vineyard, grapes', and early Greek woin- 'wine', and ultimately Hittite wiyana 'vine'). This must be the earliest-known instance of the international word "wine"

MN
I would like this to mean 'provisions' (food to go with the wine). Possibilities are: min, 'from'; mina, a measure of weight; manna, 'bread from heaven'; mnh 'portion', though mnt would be expected in the Bronze Age, but its use in the Hebrew Bible is interesting. In the Book of Esther we see the King of Persia giving a banquet (1:5, mishteh, as in V1-3 above); he provides Esther with her 'portion' (of food, rations, 2:9); and on a holy day of rejoicing the Jewish people distributed 'portions' to one another (9:19-22, cp Nehemiah 8:10-12); and 'portion' was used in connection with meat offered as sacrifice (Exodus 29:26, 1 Samuel 1:4:4-5); that seems to be in evidence here (an ox and a fatling are apparently mentioned at the end of this line). Arabic has a root MWN 'provision', mûna(t) 'provisions', Old S Arb mwnn 'victuals'
"provisions"

H
This could be the third person pronoun suffix, 'his' or 'her' (portion); or the hillul logogram again (as in V5), hence:
"provisions for the celebration".

NGTh
This root means 'seek' in Ugaritic (`Anat searches for Ba`al when he disappears), and iit might mean something like 'supplicate' here; but there is possibily another N-G-Th denoting 'sacrifice'; the word MGTh refers to something that is slaughtered for King Krt (16.6.18), parallel to 'imr 'lamb', perhaps related to Hbr muggash 'sacrificial offering'; or else 'a fat lamb'.
"We will sacrifice"

H
Pronominal suffix relating to 'him' ('El) or 'her' (`Anat), and presumably dative rather than accusative.
"for her"

' P M Kh R
The 'alep (ox-head) could be a logogram: 'ox' as the object of the verb. The P might function likewise, 'mouth'; or simply represent p, 'and' (copula, known in Ugaritic, for example). MKh would go nicely with Hbr MeaHh, 'fatling'. The final R could have the same function as in V4: "first-class banquet" there, and here (in a context of animals for food) "a prime fatling".

Putting the pieces of this line of interpretation together, the result is:

[V] "Drinking-place (MShT) of the excellent (R) celebration (H) of `Anat (`NT). 'El ('L) will provide (YGSh) [H] plenty (RB) of wine (WN) and victuals (MN) for the celebration (H). We will sacrifice (NGTh) for her (H) an ox (') and (P) a prime (R) fatling (MKh)."

This interpretation gives the gist of the inscription, but work still needs to be done on refining the syntax and defining some of the terms; and there may be other more plausible ways of dividing the sequence of letters.

See also Michael Sheflin's interpretation, involving Athtar and El. His solution does not suit the context of celebrations for the goddess in the desert.

DATING

What is the date of the inscription? I have had a suspicion that it is LATE BRONZE AGE, not MIDDLE BRONZE AGE, simply because the Sh-sign (sun with uraeus serpent) is supposed to belong to the New Kingdom period (=LBA) not the Middle Kingdom (=MBA). See the note on V2 above. Nevertheless, the sun is sometimes portrayed in Middle Kingdom iconography with a serpent but without the tail. Therefore the evidence presented by Darnell (2005, 86-90, 102-106) is
significant, and it points to the reign of Amenemhet III (in the 19th century BCE).

COLLESS, Brian E., "Recent Discoveries Illuminating the Origin of the Alphabet", Abr-Nahrain, 26 (1988), pp. 30-67. A preliminary attempt to construct a table of signs and values for the proto-alphabet, and to make sense of some of the inscriptions from Sinai and Canaan.
COLLESS, B.E., "The Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions of Sinai", Abr-Nahrain, 28 (1990), pp. 1-52. An interpretation of 44 inscriptions from the turquoise-mining region of Sinai.
COLLESS, B.E., "The Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions of Canaan", Abr-Nahrain, 29 (1991), pp. 18-66. An interpretation of 30 brief inscriptions from Late-Bronze-Age Palestine.
COLLESS, B.E., 1996, "The Egyptian and Mesopotamian Contributions to the Origins of the Alphabet", in Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Near East, ed. Guy Bunnens, Abr-Nahrain Supplement Series 5 (Louvain) 67-76.
COLLESS, B.E., 1992, "The Byblos Syllabary and the Proto-alphabet", Abr-Nahrain 30 (1992), 15-62.

And my other articles on the Canaanite syllabary ("Byblos pseudo-hieroglyphic script") in Abr-Nahrain (now Ancient Near Eastern Studies) from 1993 to 1998, culminating in:
COLLESS, Brian E., "The Canaanite Syllabary", Abr-Nahrain 35 (1998) 28-46.

All except 1988 are available at the Peeters website.

CROSS, F.M., Leaves from an Epigrapher's Notebook (2003). Collected articles

DARNELL, J. C., Theban Desert Road Survey in the Egyptian Western Desert, Vol 1 (Chicago 2002)

DARNELL, John et al, "Two early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi el-H.ôl", The Annual of the ASOR 59 (2005) 63-124.

HAMILTON, Gordon J., The Origins of the West Semitic Alphabet in Egyptian Scripts (Washington 2006) XVI +433 pages (Appendix 1, 323-330, Wadi el-Hol Texts 1-2)

SASS, B., The Genesis of the Alphabet (Wiesbaden 1988)

This is my chart showing the development
of the proto-alphabet. Wadi el-Hol letters

are on the far right of the Sinai-Egypt section.

Click on it to see the enlarged picture.

2009-10-29T16:31:00.000-07:00

MARKS ON A STONE ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT

Charles Warren (1840-1927) discovered this on a wall on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem: "The third stone north on the second course ... and on it are found, in red paint, ... the 'marks of King Solomon'. " (Recovery of Jerusalem, p. 112).

The seven characters are hard to fit into the Iron Age.

They are all different, but not sufficient for us to see the whole system and to distinguish the various letters.

I could make a case for the Bronze Age, but would this wall (or at least this stone) fit into that era?

The basis for my case is at ALPHABET AND HIEROGLYPHS

And the alphabet table at the end of that article.

Starting from the top line, reading from right to left:

Y : arm with hand (side view) >- here; yad, hence Y/y/. (See [11] Y)

O : circle representing the sun ($m$, shimshu). It usually has a snake with it. (See [22] Sh)

Second line (right to left).

? : possibly a tied bag, and so S. /Ss (Sadey). (See [16] Ss)

0 : apparently an eye (`ayin). (See [3] `ayin)

P : reversed, a human head (Rosh) (See [2] R); but it has two protruding lines at the top, and this is a feature of Q in the Bronze Age; both disappear in the Iron Age.

D : reversed, a human mouth (on its side) (Pe). (See [14] P)

+ : the cross is T at all stages of the alphabet (See [24] T)

RESULTS:

(1) Y Sh (2) Ss ` R P T

YSh: is
Ss`r : small
PT : corner, edge, side (pi`at; Hbr pe'ah)

However, in the Bronze Age the word Ss`R has ghayin (Ugaritic, also Arabic).

Reading the bottom cluster from left to right:
PR `S. ('fruit of tree')

Ss`Q means 'cry out'.
Putting the circle and the cross together:
Sh T (Hebrew shiyt, 'pit', used for pits under the Temple! M. Jastrow, Dictionary, p. 1570)

Warren (p 112) says: "This stone has no draft at the top, but one of 13 inches at the bottom".

George Grena reports, concerning one of the characters: "Warren described one of the locals removing its red-paint tail". If this was the `ayin, it would produce a snake, like the one on the vertical section of the Wadi el-Hol inscription. This would give:
SsN "Sion" (Zion), with the semi-vowel y not represented (a characteristic of Bronze-Age inscriptions);
SsNR the mysterious s.innor of 2 Samuel 5:8; waterpipe?

Is this one of those warnings for diggers?
"There is (YSh) a waterpipe (SsNR) here (P)"
The + (like x) marks the spot.

There are similar mason marks at Megiddo and Samaria, described in G. R. Driver's SEMITIC WRiTING (1954) (the chapter on "The origin of the alphabet", and all his photographs, drawings, and tables, started me off on my own quest, which has now arrived at a culminating point, I like to think).

In his chapter on Alphabetic Writing, GRD includes (115-116) "masons' marks on stone" from those 3 places, and considers the Megiddo and Samaria marks to be Iron Age Israelite, and to be letters of the Hebrew and Phoenician alphabet, and the Jerusalem marks to be the earliest; 18 examples, besides Warren's drawing (with the omission of the character I was taking to be N (snake) not `ayin (eye) after I was told by George Grena that a tail had been rubbed out by a visitor, but Driver's drawing omits it entirely!). The two lines of other letters on his figure 67 look proto-alphabetic to me.

Still trying possibilities, the large Y Sh T (arm, sun, signature-mark) could be from the root ShT (Hebrew, Ugaritic) 'set, place'.

If this were saying the "the pipe (s.nr) should be put here", this would be an amazing discovery. I wonder whether Hershel Shanks would "buy" it.

Is there anyone out there who could falsify this in this wise: we know where the s.innor was located, and it was not near that inscription?

However, Warren would surely have made his drawing before the visitor disfigured it, especially as he saw this "renegade Greek from Crete" do it: "putting up his finger, [he] rubbed off the tail of a Q, and it became O". The only mark fitting this description is the central one, with a tail, which could indeed be a Q, as noted above, or it is R.

Solomon (Shelomo) is nowhere in sight, since L and M are lacking; but at a pinch we could take the three central signs as DWD, and thus discover David!

2009-08-22T04:18:00.000-07:00

TEN SEARCHING QUESTIONS ON THE ORIGINS OF THE ALPHABET

Roylon Mortensen in conversation with Brian Colless

Your site is one of the most informative and illustrative I have come across.
I try to make it intelligible to intelligent people, and to supply the illustrations at every point where they are needed, repetitiously so.

I also like Proel.org. Although it is in Spanish, it has one of the most complete libraries of inscriptions.
Thanks for reminding me. I went to have another peep at it, and its table of the development of the alphabet is impressive; I hope they will eventually take my views into account.

Wikipedia has been helpful as a general introduction.
The Middle Bronze Age Alphabets section had included my table of signs, and my transcription of the Wadi el-Hol graffiti. Very gratifying (but it has now been removed to the underworld of the site, under discussion; and its dictatorial supervising computer will not allow references to my cryptcracker site! But there are not 'alphabets' in the MBA (Egypt's Middle Kingdom period), only a single protoype of the alphabet, the proto-alphabet, which pops up in various places: Canaan, Sinai, Egypt. There was certainly a West Semitic syllabary invented in the MBA (before 2300 BCE), but the proto-alphabet may not actually appear till the Late Bronze Age (the New Kingdom period in Egypt).

I have another one in mind, but can't think of its url off the top of my head. And I don't go along with most of the author's ideas, but he has collected a library of images of more recent inscriptions that is useful.
Please lead me to it.

If you can point me to any others, I would love to look at them.
Lawrence Lo, a very bright amateur, has one, but he follows the Albright table of signs.
http://www.ancientscripts.com

I found yours one day and was really impressed with your presentation. I appreciate in particular the way that you lay out the inscriptions from Serabit El Khadim, and talk about them. I was always confused about them or lacked information until I came upon your site.
Well, without a correct inventory of the signs, W.F. Albright and Frank Moore Cross, and those who follow them (Gordon Hamilton, for example) have muddied the waters as they stumble about in the gloom. Confusion has certainly reigned, but nevertheless Cross and Hamilton are correct in their general view of the situation that the West Semitic (Canaanite) proto-alphabet was invented for writing Canaanite language, using Egyptian hieroglyphs.

I respect the fact that you have many years of experience and tools that I do not have at my disposal when it comes to identifying what the alphabetic characters represent. If I don't seem altogether impertinent, I would like to pass along a few of my questions on the development of the alphabet.

[1] First, though Frank Cross makes an argument of a bridging development between the earlier Middle-age Bronze script and the later Phoenician script, I don't see any. Basically, I see a connection between numerous of the symbols, but a very instantaneous change between the earlier and later scripts. The first script is more organic, more varied (not stable), and has twenty-seven characters. The second script is more geometrical in form, more standardized, and has twenty-two symbols.

This is a reasonable observation of the situation. But Cross is right in principle, although his details are flawed by some incorrect identifications between the original pictorial signs and the letters of the Phoenician consonantal script (an 'alphabet' with no vowels).

At the start we see pictorial representations of things (an ox-head, the plan of a house, a door, a person jumping for joy >-E) ; in the middle stage stylization occurs, making it harder to recognize the things, and they may lie down on their side or become inverted (both in the case of the ox; the head of the jubilater loses its roundness and his legs fall off); finally we have A and >| for the ox, and E for the jubilater.

The changes are so large, drastic even, that the origin of the letters can not be guessed, and matching them with their originals is tricky; but it can be done, as shown on my table of signs.

[2] Second, though there has been a strong push for an Egyptian origin of the script, I again don't see convincing evidence of such. Certainly, some of the symbols are similar, but there are not consistent one to one correspondences of glyphs throughout the entirety of the script. So, why are some scholars acting like there are? Or am I wrong?

Undeniably, the Canaanite scripts (first the syllabary, then the consonantary) used Egyptian hieroglyphs as their characters, wherever possible. One clear indication of this is the sign that became Greek Theta. In the syllabary, the nefer hieroglyph, which represented beauty and goodness symbolically, not pictorially (o-+), became the sign for T.A in the syllabary, and T. (Tet) in the consonantary, on the basis of the Semitic word t.ab "good, beautiful". The Canaanite Tet (T.) is a cross inside a circle [(+)], presumably an abbreviation of o-+ . The sign W (waw "hook" --o) did not have an Egyptian counterpart, but it was a good choice, given the paucity of words with initial W.

Gordon Hamilton tries to find a pattern, whereby the Proto-Canaanite signs keep in step with the Egyptian hieroglyphs, and this does happen.

[3] Third, why maintain the idea that the Hebrew script (alphabet) descends from the Phoenician script when there is much earlier evidence of the script in Canaan, Sinai, and Egypt? Phoenicia is a big civilization, so it stands to reason that that is where we are going to find a mass of evidence of the script. Hebrew is spoken by a mostly nomadic people few in number that could have taught their alphabetic system to the Phoenicians.

We have too few examples to trace the evolution exactly, but the Timna inscriptions, the Beth-Shemesh ostracon, the Izbet Sartah ostracon, and now the Qeiyafa ostracon show us what was going on, to some extent. It seems that the syllabary was used in preference to the consonantary in Byblos throughout the Bronze Age, while both are found together around the southern regions (southern Canaan, Sinai, and Egypt). So it may be close to the truth saying that the south taught the Phoenicians in the Iron Age. However,

[4] Fourth, is there any certainty behind the significance of the objects of the letters heh, zayin, het, tet, lamed, nun, and qof? In particular, how is Heh assigned the meaning of HLL, "praise", is it simply from the form of the earlier symbol with uplifted arms? And how do you then differentiate between the symbol with two arms uplifted or one up and one down? Is it about finding a term in an ancient Semitic language that means something that could be suggested by the form of the glyph?

I myself feel fairly confident about my identifications of the objects and symbols for each of the letters; my table is based on more evidence than anyone else has used, notably two invaluable copies of the proto-alphabet from southern Egypt (Thebes), which have not been exploited previously, although they were published by Flinders Petrie a century ago. All the letters you cite (except lamed, probably) are not bearing their original name in each case. If we can take H as an example (actually the original of Greco-Roman E) going with hillul (in the sense of "celebration, jubilation"rather than "praise"); there are three "graphic variants"; (1) the normal one has the person raising both forearms (hieroglyph A28); (2) a person dancing, with only one arm raised (A32); (3) a person standing on hands (A29).

[5] Fifth, I have heard no translations of the Wadi El Hol inscriptions. Why is this? Do they just make no sense at all? I think I tried a while ago and came up with something, but it didn't seem meaningful in any way.

As I see it, the main problem everybody has with interpreting this text (the two parts add up to one inscription) is that they are using the faulty Albright table of signs and sound-values; also they do not allow the possibility that the signs could be used like Egyptian hieroglyphs, as logograms and rebuses: thus the snake sign is N, from nah.ash "snake", but it can also stand for "snake" as a word-sign (logogram), and also for any word or part of a word with the consonants n-h.-sh in that sequence (rebus, or "rebogram" is my term). I think I have found some examples of the snake representing "copper" (nh.sh and nh.sht).

My reading of it is found here. It fits into the surrounding Egyptian pattern of holiday celebrations for the goddess Hat-hor, with the Canaanites having a banquet for their goddess `Anat:

[V] "First-class (Ra'sh) feast (MShT) of the celebration (Hillul) of `Anat (`NT). 'El ('L) will provide (YGSh) [H] plenty (RB) of wine (WN) and victuals (MN) for the celebration (Hillul). We will sacrifice (NGTh) for her (H) an ox ('alp) and (P) a prime (Ra'sh) fatling (MKh)."

[6] Sixth, rather than consider the second form of the script (post middle-age bronze) an abstraction of the earlier script when there is no evidence of abstraction, why not consider it some new development of the script? In other words, when we don't have any evidence of the actual letters changing, migrating from one form to the other, and instead just the appearance of the second form that then goes through some conservative modifications, how can the script be considered an abstraction of the earlier script?

[7] Seven, if the scholarly community assigns such certainties to the alphabetic script, why is it so difficult for scholars to agree upon how the text is to be read? I mean, the scholarly community comes out like this is what the script represents, but then there is little consensus on the meaning of extant inscriptions. I'm sounding harsh, but I just want to know if this is sort of like if we say it stronger it will actually be stronger. Please forgive my seeming impudence.

[8] Eight, can anyone give any credible reason for why the Hebrews or ancestors of the Hebrews would adopt a twenty-two letter alphabet (abjad) when we know that some of the letters had to do double duty? What was the purpose of settling upon twenty-two letters?

[9] Nine, why insist that the letters have no numerical equivalence, something that shows up later in the imported Greek alphabet and used as well later in Hebrew, when from 1500 B.C.E. (Ugaritic) and later alphabetic scripts (Isbet Sartah, Tel Zayit) there is a definite order that hints to a numerical origin. In fact, this may be why the early script employs twenty-seven letters, because such fits into a nine digit, three place value, counting system.

[10] Ten, have you considered how difficult it would be to count in an ancient form of Hebrew where most of the numbers are two syllable and a majority begin with the letter Shin? Only seven is two syllable in English and English numbers are quite varied in their sounds. Perhaps the alphabet developed from a counting system that followed the pattern of mostly single syllable, some dual syllable, where each sound was distinct.

I would really appreciate some help here. I am in the dark on how scholarship answers these questions. If you could please shed some light I would greatly appreciate it.

Regards,

Roylon

I have discovered an elegant design underlying the alphabetic script. It is numerically significant and linguistically sophisticated in nature, a reason why it was so successful. The middle-age bronze script represents an early stage in the development of a script that had not yet reached maturity in a purely logistical design. However, that design was forgotten by the time of the Hebrew national script (1,000 B.C.E.). Specifically, the letter Nun when loosing its unique shape and beginning to mimic the letter Mem signals the loss of the underlying structure of the script. The letter Lamed similarly indicates the demise of the script in its later crook shape. Its earlier coiled design is more definitively accurate. And the different designs used for the letter Het are illustrative of its descent, the two bar diagonal design being the more principal.

The later look of the script is not due to abstraction of the earlier symbols, but rather to a better understanding of the logical system underlying the script's design. In other words the changes are deliberate. The later symbol of the ox, for example, is not an abstraction of its earlier symbol, but a re rendering of the symbol to represent an advanced understanding of the system. Substitution of symbols in the second script all represent improvements to the system. Some samples of substitution are more explicit. Some versions of the letter alef, for example, represent the principle behind the letter, rather than the original significance of the symbol. The new Bet is not an abstraction but a redesigned version to work in a complementary aspect of the script, and so it is with many of the symbols. The new symbols interrelate. They are organized into patterns. This is the most obvious reason for reducing the script from twenty-seven to twenty-two letters. Five are superfluous symbols in the new logistics of the system. And the order of the alphabet adhered to from the beginning, though with some minor alterations due to scribal error, derives directly from the logical order of the script. The alphabetic script is an example of an ingenious development not only in writing but also in the sophistication of an ancient ideological system. Thus is the alphabet, the greatest invention of all time!

roylon@opendoor.com

2008-11-26T16:25:00.000-08:00

SINAI PROTO-ALPHABETIC INSCRIPTION 375a (383)
TURQUOISE MINING

(Note that I numbered this inscription 383 in 1990; but Sass and Hamilton designate it as 375a.)

This is another interesting stone from the Sinai turquoise mines. It was found during excavations in Mine M, close to the obituary inscription of Asa (358), together with the rations plaque (375) and other inscribed objects (Starr and Butin 1936, 20-26). Starr described it as made of local sandstone (22, innocently followed by Colless 1990, 43), but Gordon Hamilton (2006, 375) says that it is hard stone, probably limestone. It was in a dump in Bay 1 of the mine, "not over 30 cm. below the top of the fill" (22); so Sass (Table 1), "Dump in Mine M"; but Hamilton has the dump outside. In attempting to read the text on it I am struck by the occurrence (in Starr's account) of such terms as "debris", "refuse", "mine chips", "bits of turquoise". I think I can perhaps detect a word for "gravel" (h.s.) at the top, and "scrapings" (sh.) at the bottom.

The photograph reproduced above is the one provided by Starr and Butin in 1936; it is unsatisfactory, as the writing on the lower left section is not visible, and the rest is barely discernible; it led me into deep error, and my 1990 published attempt at reading it is worthless.

Defective drawing by BEC (1990)

Now with two new photographs, released by Gordon Hamilton (with Marcel Marée, Marilyn Lundberg, and Bruce Zuckerman; 2007, p 126-127, pl VI and VII) and a better description of the object, I can try again.

Lundberg and Zuckerman have put eight clear photographs of the object on the internet: four coloured, four monochrome. To gain access to these and photographs of other ancient texts, we go to the wonderful database of their West Semitic Research Project, and request Sinai 375a:
INSCRIPTIFACT (http://www.inscriptifact.com/)

Each photograph helps to identify the details of particular characters in the text, such as the cross in the middle of the stone, which does not always appear with all its four pieces standing out clearly. With the aid of these pictures, I can see most of the letters on the old photograph, but the lower left corner was blank.

Nevertheless, everyone admits it is not easy to determine exactly what the faintly incised letters might be. Hamilton's drawing (2006, 374; 2007, 33) is instructive but not perfect. My own sketch adds and subtracts a few speculative details in the obscure areas.

An interesting feature of the stone is the animal depicted on the other side. Hamilton (2006, 375) describes it as a jackal, or the Seth animal (2007, 33). (I have pondered over the origin of that mythical beast myself; its snout reminds me of an aardvark, or an anteater; or its destructive nature suggests a connection with the locust.) I think the letters in the column on the left side of the inscription refer to this creature (the word for 'jackal' can be found there).

Many of these Sinai texts have the basic form of labels, with Dh "this" introducing the object (345.4, 346.1, 351, 353, 360, 361, 382). The sign Dh is found in that column, below what appears to be an upright hand (K), and above the horns of the ox. Taking this as the starting point, the sequence runs:

Dh ( two parallel horizontal lines: = )
' ('alep, ox-head)
` (`ayin, eye)
S (fish; Hamilton follows the erroneous line that the fish is D)
Hh (H., a house with two rooms and a yard, representing h.az.ir 'court, mansion'; there is another instance at the top of the stone; the courtyard can be rounded, and the one in the corner seems to have a bent line at the top; the two rooms can be adjacent with the yard section covering both; here the rooms and yard are all in parallel, in both cases).

Note that Hamilton wants to turn the 'western' end of the long line in the middle (I do not show it extended so far but it does apparently pass right between the ox-head and the eye) into a snake, hence N.

My reading would be (with the words separated):

Dh ' ` SHh
"This (dh) is the jackal (') of the heap (`) of sweepings (sh.)"

Hebrew 'i is "jackal", `iy is "heap (of ruins)", sh.iy (root: scrape or sweep away) is "scrapings".

The jackal (deified as Anubis in Egypt) was the guardian of tombs and bodies; he had a leading role in the mummification process. The irony is that he is assigned a protective status, because he frequented tombs, but his reason for being there was different and not nice. I will suppose that the jackal here guards the turquoise that has been mined, and also the tailings, which may include pieces of the precious mineral.

The stone would thus have a magical purpose; the image of the jackal would protect the mined turquoise from looters (or else they had a real-live domesticated jackal there!). Elsewhere in the inscriptions, the equipment of the expedition is put under the aegis of the goddess, as being "loved by Ba`alat" (351, 352, 353, 374).

The top line of writing could be seen as (reading from the right):
Hh (H., made up of three sections, like the Hh in the bottom corner)
Ss (S., a tied bag), not certain
Dh (two horizontal strokes)
H (apparently a stick figure of a person rejoicing)
N (a faint snake)
K (an upright hand)

However, there is a stroke to the right of the Hh, and Hamilton has constructed a Tt around it (a cross within a circle, as in the Phoenician alphabet). I have doubts about seeing this sign here or anywhere else in proto-alphabetic writing in the Bronze Age (before 1200 BCE), and this is the only example Hamilton can point to. The original form was a cross outside a circle: +-o (see the section on Tt here).

As I intimated at the outset, the combination HhSs could be the word for gravel or pebbles (root h.s.s. 'cut up, divide'), or a word for 'exterior', or 'partition" (dividing wall).

The sequence HNK might be a demonstrative adverb (cp Arabic hunaka 'there'), or an interjection calling for attention to what follows: 'Behold' (or 'Beware!), pointing to the guardian jackal (Look out! This is the jackal guarding the heap of scrapings).

With regard to our quest for the various letters of the alphabet, an important feature of this text is the presence of Dh (here) and Z (immediately opposite, on the far right of the stone). In the Phoenician alphabet dh will coalesce with z. Z is a pair of triangles (|><|), which I take to be manacles, for which the word is ziq, hence Z. This is the only occurrence of Z in the Sinai inscriptions, and I had not noticed it till Gordon Hamilton pointed it out. If you look at our Roman Z you can see that one of its diagonal lines has been omitted along the way; actually it did not happen like that; it became |-| (turn it round horizontally) and the middle line became diagonal to allow the character to be written in one movement: |\|, Z .

The Z on the stone has a hand (K) below it, and a cross (T). This could be zaku, meaning 'pure', a word that can be applied to minerals (one problem is that while Hebrew and Akkadian have Z in this root, Old South Arabic has Dh, and Aramaic has D, but Arabic has both Z and Dh, so we can accept Z here); in this instance it has the feminine marker -t, and if it is an adjective there should be a noun to go with it. Could it be describing a word for 'turquoise', which has not been discovered in these inscriptions, yet.

To my eyes a central column is present, between the columns on the left and right sides, and below the top line. It is not constituted by the two characters that Hamilton conjectures. He joins the two signs that I see as a mouth above a hand, to make a unit (as I did in 1990, to produce a hand, K), which he understands as a fish, and reads it (erroneously) as D, though it is nothing like the fish in the left column, which has two fins and a tail; he takes the long horizontal line below that as significant (as I did in 1990, combining it with the parallel stroke below it to make a door, hence D, and this remains a possibility), and taking it with one of the angles of the X (actually the letter T) to make a long snake (N).

The Egyptian word for turquoise (mfk3.t ) is found (damaged) on the bilingual sphinx (S351). The simpler form of the word is mfkt, and I see it here as a borrowed word in the sequence mpkt, followed by zkt, "pure", hence "pure turquoise".

Accordingly, the writing on the left side of the stone is a warning: Beware of the jackal guarding the scrapings. Further to the right is the label: Pure turquoise. The top line remains obscure to me, but it might be the general identification of the place where the material from the mine was deposited (the 'dump' mentioned by the archaeologists).

Brian E. Colless, The proto-alphabetic inscriptions of Sinai, Abr-Nahrain (Ancient Near Eastern Studies) 28 (1990) 1-52.
Gordon J. Hamilton, The origins of the West Semitic alphabet in Egyptian scripts (2006).
Gordon J. Hamilton et al, Three recently located early West Semitic alphabetic texts, Maarav, 14, 1 (2007) 27-37, 121-128.
Benjamin Sass, The Genesis of the Alphabet (1988).
Richard F. S. Starr, Romain F. Butin, Excavations and Protosinaitic inscriptions at Serabit el-Khadem (1936)
West Semitic Research Project, InscriptiFact (additional colour photographs of the stone are available in their archives)

2008-08-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

EARLY EVOLUTION OF THE ALPHABET

The search for the origins of the alphabet is a perennial quest. In the fifth century before the current era (B.C.E.), the Greek historian Herodotos inquired into this matter and heard that at some time in the past a certain Kadmos had come to Boeotia, in Greece, with a group of Phoenicians (that is to say, Semites or Canaanites). Among other things, Kadmos had introduced the art of writing, which had previously been unknown to the Greeks, or so Herodotos thought. The characters of this new writing system were therefore called Kadmean letters or Phoenician letters. Herodotos was not able to say who had originally invented them, but others after him echoed the plausible claim that the Grecian alphabet had its source in the orient. The name Kadmos is reminiscent of Hebrew qedem, meaning "the east", as in "the wisdom of all the sons of qedem (easterners)", which was judged to be inferior to that of King Solomon (1 Kings 4:30). Somewhere in the Levant (the region of Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine) the starting point for the alphabet is to be sought. But where precisely, and when?

In the sixth century of the current era (C.E.) an answer was proposed by a Christian writer named Kosmas of Alexandria, who was dubbed Indikopleustes, "Indic seafarer", because he had travelled to India (and even though he had sailed beyond the horizon he rejected Ptolemy's spherical view of the world in favour of the flat earth theory!). Kosmas confidently declared that in Sinai there were inscriptions written in the earliest forms of the letters of the alphabet; these had been taught by God to the Hebrews on their wanderings in the wilderness; subsequently Kadmos of Tyre, a Phoenician, learned these letters from the Israelites and carried them to the Greeks, who in turn passed them on to the whole world. The opinion of Kosmas was that the alphabet was divinely revealed to Moses for the purpose of writing down the laws of Yahweh, the God of Israel. This was also the view of Eupolemos, a second-century Jewish historian.

Kosmas was perhaps referring to the picture-writing to be seen in and around the ancient Egyptian turquoise mines of Sinai. These mines are situated north of Jebel Musa, the mountain traditionally identified as the place where Moses received the Torah on tablets of stone, inscribed by the finger of God (Exodus 31:18). This mining area has an abundance of Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions, glorifying the pharaohs who had sent expeditions to Sinai, to obtain copper and turquoise. There are also some pictographic texts, which are not decipherable as Egyptian, as the British archaeologist W.M. Flinders Petrie noted when he discovered them in 1905.

Actually these pictographic inscriptions had never really been lost, as pilgrims to the Holy Land had long been visiting the mountain of Moses and the mines of Sinai. However, no visitor who saw the inscriptions would have been able to read them, and that includes the peregrinating scholar Kosmas and the polymathic professor Petrie. These chiseled messages have been there for at least three and a half millennia, apparently dating from around 1500 B.C.E.

Nevertheless, in his book Researches in Sinai (1906), Flinders Petrie made some significant points about this mysterious form of picture-writing. Firstly, many of the signs clearly corresponded to Egyptian hieroglyphs (so they may have been borrowed from the Egyptian hieroglyphic inventory). Secondly, the limited number of characters in the script probably indicated that it was alphabetic (one sound per sign), not syllabic or logographic (one syllable or one word per sign, and thus requiring many more characters than an alphabet, as is the case with Babylonian cuneiform and Chinese writing). Thirdly, it was presumably representing the Semitic language of the Asiatic workers who are mentioned in the hieroglyphic inscriptions as having participated in the turquoise expeditions.

Petrie was right on all three counts, it now appears, but he was not willing to find the original alphabet in this script. He had his own views on the genesis of the alphabet, as deriving from a widespread collection of "geometric marks", abstract signs that had been used from time immemorial. In his opinion, the Sinai pictographic script was simply a "local barbarism".

Petrie's compatriot and fellow-Egyptologist Alan Gardiner took a different approach. While working with T.E. Peet on an edition of the Egyptian hieroglyphic texts from Sinai, Gardiner was obliged to consider the anomalous pictographic inscriptions from the same region. Working on the hypothesis that this was a Semitic alphabet, and with the Hebrew-Phoenician names of the letters in mind (aleph "ox", bayt "house", and so on), he was immediately struck by the presence of an ox-head. He boldly suggested to Peet that this was surely an aleph, the sign that represents a glottal stop. The ox-head was also an Egyptian hieroglyph, and when Gardiner subsequently found the "house" hieroglyph (pr) he assumed it was B (bayt).

Continuing his search, and applying the acrophonic principle (whereby the initial consonant of the Semitic word associated with each pictograph supplied the sound of the particular sign), Gardiner recognized the "water" hieroglyph (a horizontal wavy line) as M (mayim "water"), the human head as R (rosh), the human eye as the guttural consonant `ayin ("eye"), the cross as T (taw "mark, signature"), the cobra as N (nakhash "snake").

Gardiner then looked for "some recurrent group of signs which might spell some word", and one series of four letters "stood out with great prominence", occurring in six out of the inscriptions he was examining. This turned out to be B`LT, "Baalat" or "Lady" (feminine of Baal, "Lord"), the Semitic appellation by which the Egyptian goddess Hat-hor was known in Byblos and other Canaanite kingdoms. Significantly, hundreds of the Egyptian inscriptions mention "Hat-hor, Lady of the Turquoise", as the divine patroness of the expeditions. This discovery stands as the foundation stone of proto-alphabetic research (but when Gardiner presented his results to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1915, Flinders Petrie politely demurred).

Notice that Gardiner was here practising the technique of "sequencing", a method also employed by geneticists: the investigator scans a chain of "letters" (whether DNA or ABC) and picks out recognizable "sequences". Another feature for comparison is the standard three-letter codon (three nucleotides constituting a genetic code unit determining amino-acid sequence): in Semitic languages (such as Arabic, Phoenician, Hebrew, Babylonian, and Ethiopic) words are built on tri-consonantal "roots".

The proto-alphabet came to birth in a world which already had a number of sophisticated writing systems. The oldest of these was the cuneiform script of Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq), the land of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This began, naturally enough, as picture writing (pictographs representing words or ideas) some five thousand years ago, towards the end of the fourth millennium B.C.E. The pictographs, usually inscribed on clay, soon moved beyond this stage in two ways: they became stylized clusters of wedge-shaped marks (cuneiform characters), and, by the rebus principle, they became syllable signs, so that dug "pot" was also used for the syllable dug, and so on. This system was complicated, having hundreds of signs, but its virtue was that vowels were represented in its syllabic characters.

In Egypt also, a pictographic script appeared sometime before 3000 B.C.E. The earliest-known "hieroglyphs" were pictures representing words, but they then advanced to a phonetic stage. However, unlike the Mesopotamian cuneiform script, vowels were not indicated, only consonants: the sign for pr "house" (the ultimate source of our letter B) could also say pr "go" and be an element in prt "winter".

At Gubla (later called Byblos by the Greeks), on the coast of ancient Lebanon (Phoenicia), before 2000 B.C.E., someone produced a new Semitic script, which combined features of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian systems, and needed far fewer signs. It was a syllabary (like cuneiform) and it employed Egyptian hieroglyphs, as far as possible. Its new feature was the principle of acrophony, whereby the first syllable of the West Semitic (Canaanite) word for the depicted object was what the hieroglyph said: thus the pr ("house") sign became ba, the first syllable of Semitic bayt "house". Some examples of the seventy or so characters from Byblos are given on the left side of the PHOENICIA column on the table of signs. Not many documents have survived in this script, and it is widely asserted that it has not not been deciphered yet. I beg to differ. See CANAANITE SYLLABARY and WEST SEMITIC LOGO-SYLLABARY.

Subsequently, perhaps at Byblos, but presumably somewhere in the West Semitic area (Syria, Lebanon, or Palestine), the acrophonic principle was applied further, so as to reduce the number of signs to about two dozen: only the initial consonant of bayt was represented by the sign for "house", and this became proto-alphabetic B. The earliest known instances of this new script date from the Middle Bronze Age, before 1600 B.C.E.

Actually there is a consonantal alphabet hiding in the Egyptian system: its hieroglyphs can represent three consonants at once (nfr "good"), two consonants (pr "house"), or simply one (r "mouth"). (Incidentally, these three characters are also found in the proto-alphabet, as T., B, and P.) The uniconsonantal hieroglyphs could have been used in combinations to write any ancient Egyptian word, but the Egyptian scribes did not take the step of using only the single-consonant signs and discarding all the others, though modern-day "scribes" in the streets of Cairo will now write people's names with this "pseudo-alphabet", as a tourist gimmick. Whether the inventor of the Semitic alphabet noticed this fact or not, the proto-alphabet was certainly designed as a simplification of all the systems that came before it.

Around the fourteenth century B.C.E., a cuneiform alphabet was devised for writing West Semitic language on clay, but after a few hundred years this was ousted by the Phoenician linear alphabet (the stylized version of the proto-alphabet, in which the original pictures are no longer discernible).

Out in the Mediterranean sea, on Crete and Cyprus, there were syllabic scripts (notably Linear A, which developed into Linear B in Crete and Greece, and into Linear C on Cyprus, both used for writing Greek language), apparently based on the model of the West Semitic acrophonic logo-syllabary; but these eventually gave way to the Greek alphabet, that is, the consonantal Phoenician alphabet with the added bonus of vowels.

Here is my table of the development of the alphabet, starting in column 1 with Egyptian hieroglyphs that were borrowed for the letters of the proto-alphabet (not in all cases, notice, as W and T have no clear counterparts in the Egyptian system).

The second and third columns show examples of the original letters, as attested in Bronze Age inscriptions from Egypt, Sinai, and Canaan (Syria-Palestine). The narrow column (BS = Byblos syllabary) has the syllabic signs corresponding to the subsequent letters of the alphabet. The Canaan column also has examples from the Iron Age (after 1200 BCE), on the right side of each box; and the signs of the Canaanite cuneiform alphabet (with wedge-clusters representing the original pictorial characters) are also displayed in the Canaan panels.

The Phoenicia and Greece sections display the names and forms of the letters in the Phoenician alphabet and their counterparts in the Grecian alphabet; the standard Greek and Roman forms appear on the right.

The last column displays examples of Arabian letters from the Iron Age, obviously based on the pictorial characters of the Bronze Age, and not derived from the Phoenician alphabet.

Click on this chart to see it enlarged.

For a detailed study of each letter, go to ALPHABET AND HIEROGLYPHS.

2007-11-02T02:51:00.000-07:00

ANCIENT METAL MELTING

SINAI INSCRIPTION 351

This is a very interesting and important inscription from the entrance to turquoise mine L at Serabit el-Khadim. It has a drawing of the Egyptian god Ptah., the patron of craftsmen; he is depicted standing in a shrine, and holding a sceptre. We may surmise that the text will have some reference to craftsmanship.

The photograph provided shows a break, though the stone was not in that state when it was first discovered, and a photograph taken by Petrie is also available (Sass, fig. 38). Remember that there was a whole series of such stelas found on the ground, but they were originally on the rock-face. The drawing I have offered here is not entirely accurate, but indicates the characters I think are there.

A good place to start would be the left column, because we can detect a familiar sequence there: 'beloved of Ba`alat'. At the bottom we can see `ayin-L-T. At the top we can find M, then the horns of an ox and the snout ('alep), then the arms and head of the jubilater, though the body and legs are not easy to trace (H). We may safely assume that the space below had two houses, representing BB (note the square B next to `LT in the right column). It all adds up to produce: M'HB B`LT, 'beloved of Ba`alat'.

So, who or what was under the guardianship of the goddess? We would expect to find the answer in the other line of writing. At the top we can detect Dh [=], 'this'. Identification of the next letter is crucial, and we should set it aside for a moment. Moving down the column we meet a very clear B (square); Sh (not obvious, but that is what we find in the corresponding sequence on 353, 360, 361); N (snake); M; Sh (fractured by the break, but clear on Petrie's photograph); N; Ss (tied bag); B; W (hook); Tt [+o], a sign we have not encountered previously. Briefly, my interpretation of this is NSsB WTt, 'prefect of the expedition'. WTt would be a transcription of the Egyptian word for 'expedition', found in the Egyptian inscriptions at the mining site. NSsB corresponds to Hebrew nis.ab, meaning foreman or prefect; the term is also found in 350, and in the plural form with -n, in 346 and 349, RB NSsBN 'chief of the prefects'.
Many scholars have taken this word to be NQBN 'miners' (root nqb, 'bore'), and this is a very seductive opinion, but I think the tied bag is Ss, not Q.

Returning to the second character in column 1: the common choice for this is T, and the Sh is understood as Th (from *thann, 'a compositie bow', whereas I invoke shimsh, 'sun', sun-serpent hieroglyph, with sun-disk omitted). Ironically, the resulting sequence is interpreted as DhT BThN, 'the one of the serpent' ('the Serpent Lady'), the goddess depicted holding snakes. However, there is no T [+]. Those who see T only have T (not +, the top stroke is lacking), and there are three vertical strokes descending from it, not one. I presume that the one on the left is part of the M in column 2. The remaining two strokes would be fingers, and the whole character (including the cross-bar) would be a hand, and therefore K. Viewed upside down it is _V_ and thus a perfect K!

The resultant sequence KBShN coincides with a Hebrew word for 'furnace' or 'kiln' (kibshan). This would fit the context admirably, since metal-melting equipment (crucibles, bellows, casting moulds for tools) has been found in Mine L. Also, the following MSh could be related to Hebrew m's and mss, meaning 'melt' (Arabic massa, 'dissolve'), and so KBShN MSh would signify 'melt-furnace'. Presumably the 'melt' qualification distinguishes the kibshan as a furnace, not a kiln for pottery.

Unfortunately, every time I encounter this sequence, I have to argue (you have heard the expression 'special pleading', but I don't know what it means) that we are looking at K not T.

The meaning of the inscription emerges thus:

This is the metal-melting furnace of the prefect of the expedition, which is beloved of Ba`alat

SINAI INSCRIPTION 353

Looking again at Sinai 353 (which has a similar sequence of signs in column 1) in the bottom left corner, in the word KNSh ('gather'), we find a K that is the same (though on a different slant and inverted) as the example on 351 above. A third of the way down the middle line, again in the word KNSh, a somewhat different type of K stands out. In the column on the right, which definitely says Dh KBShNMSh MHB`LT ('This melt-furnace is beloved of Ba'alat'), the K is not distinct, though it is not a cross like the T at the bottom. I suggest it is the same as the one on 351: a horizontal bar with an inverted V hanging from it.

SINAI INSCRIPTIONS 360 & 361

Turning now to a pair of related inscriptions, which apparently have the KBShN MSh sequence: 361 (on the right side of the photograph, left side of the drawing) was engraved on the rock face near the entrance to Mine N; 360 was on a stone slab near Mine K, and close to 367 (the stone marking the water reservoir). Inscription 361 is clearer, so we will examine it first. I know the picture is murky, but a magnifying glass helps with all the photographs I provide (most are from Butin's publications). On the left (not shown on the drawing) is a large letter that could be K (hand with fingers), followed by B (a square house), Sh (the sun-serpent), and N (snake, below Sh). This gives us KBShN, and there is possibly M[Sh] down below K.

On the right hand side of the stela (360), focusing on the letters in the middle of the column of writing, we can find (with patience and persistence, on better reproductions than I have provided here) BShNMSh, preceded by a simple T [+], Dh [=], and a sign that is commonly transcribed as T, but we know it must be K! I suspect that the same scribe has engraved both inscriptions (360, 361), and I wish he had written more words, to help us to distinguish his T and K. My suggestion is that we are looking at a simplified hand with its middle digit and little finger pointing to the left, and the thumb pointing upward. So we have KBShN MSh, 'melt furnace', but the expected MHB B`LT is not obvious (there is a possible B to the left of MSh), but the stone has suffered severe weather-damage (and exposure to the water of the reservoir?).

At the top of the column (with comparative assistance from 361), we detect Dh, Sh, Hh, 'alep (ox-head, slightly indistinct), T, Z, and then KBShN MSh.

Regarding the Hh (H.), we have already encountered this letter in the bottom left corner of 353 (see the photograph above). There it was a square house with a round courtyard; here it is comprised of two squares, the upper one of these being divided into two; on 361 the corresponding letter (standing out clearly above a large square B) has the bisected square at the bottom. All three represent a stylish mansion, as distinct from a simple house, and the word hhassir (court, mansion) provides the sound Hh. Another example is found on the rock at Mine G (see 380, below); it has the shape H), that is, two rooms and a semicircular courtyard. It is obviously the character that became Roman H, by the loss of some of its walls, but people will try to tell you that it is a form of B (house), even when there is a clear square B below it (as on all three of these inscriptions).

The combination ShHh produces a word known in Hebrew and Aramaic, meaning 'pit' or 'ditch', from the root sh-w-hh, 'sink down'. This presumably refers to the mine in each case: 361 was at the entrance of Mine N, and 360 would relate to Mine K (though it was found 150 metres from the mine).

The next word 't could be: 'you' ('thou'); 'a sign' (even meaning a letter of the alphabet); 'he came'; or 'together with'. If we can allow Dh (dhu) to function as a demonstrative adjective, giving 'this pit', rather than as a pronoun, saying 'this (is) a pit', then we get this result:

"This pit, together with this melt-furnace, is beloved of Ba`alat".
Or going further: "This pit and this melt-furnace are together beloved of Ba`alat".

We find much the same on the right hand side of 361. It commences with Dh ShHh, 'this pit', but the K is missing for the -BShN MSh, which is all quite clear on the photograph. Those who constantly seek 'the serpent lady' (DhT BThN, 'the one of the serpent') find the missing DhT to the left of HhB. But is it T or K? To make it K we can invoke a faint line pointing NW, which Gordon Hamilton (2006, 361) includes in his drawing (but is merely a smudge on the reproduction above, as is the stroke needed to complete the T [+]). Again I will plump for a stylized hand (not a cross) with a wrist, two fingers, and a thumb.

There is space above the Dh for ' T, as on 360, but it is not visible; there are possible horns of the ox, and also perhaps a P (mouth) above Dh, which could supply pa, 'and'. Beneath the K we can see MH, the beginning of the familiar formula, but a piece of the text has been lost.

My reading would thus be:
"This pit (and) this melt-furnace are beloved of Ba`alat".

SINAI INSCRIPTION 380

Now, we turn to a new inscription, first published by Benjamin Sass as Sinai 380 (Sass 1988, 40; and Fig. 99, 100 [Mine G], 103-5 [inscription]). His two photgraphs, taken at different times of day, are not clear, except to clairvoyants. Émile Puech (2002, plates 2 and 3, reproduced below, numbering the inscription 387) offers a better photograph, and a copy of a squeeze (estampage). My drawing attempts to find the main details, but Puech says that I have overlooked a number of letters; his drawing (on his Fig. 1.2) has twice as many as mine. Considerable guesswork is required to recreate the whole text, but here is its context. This inscription is above the entrance to Mine G, and a collection of metallurgical equipment was found on the roof of the mine, near the writing. Thus it would not be surprising to find metal-melting mentioned in the text.

My view of the letters sees two lines: one runs from right to left, the other from top to bottom. If we start with the letters on the far right, we can see 'aleph (ox) and Hh. A word that would fit neatly into this setting is 'ah., 'brazier' (as in Jeremiah 36:22-23, "the fire of the brazier"); it is said to be a loanword from Egyptian, which also fits into the general scenario of West Asians working for the Pharaoh.

Below the 'brazier', running in the same direction, is the word B`LT, 'the Lady'. Putting these two sequences together we have "Brazier of Ba`alat". If there is a Dh ( = ) to the left of the Hh, then this would strengthen the connection between the two words, affirming that the brazier belongs to Ba`alat, and therefore it should not be touched. This would serve the same purpose as the cautionary expression "beloved of Ba`alat" found in the other inscriptions under consideration here. Émile Puech claims that M'HB`LT runs from left to right along the bottom. but this is hard to find (note that the estampage has 3 centimetres missing from that section of the rock).

From what we have seen in the previous four inscriptions, which mention a 'melt-furnace' (351, 353, 360, 361), my expectation is that the vertical column of signs will say KBShNMSh. Certainly, to the left of the T we can find the snake for N and and below it the wave-sign (with three peaks) for M. Above the N is the other snake-sign, Sh, representing the serpent on the sun; another Sh is not really discernible below the M, but the stone may have been worn away by weather here. Above the Sh of -ShNM[Sh] the photograph seems to show a snake (N), not a house (B); but there are sufficient lines at this point to construct a box. Above this is a round character, which might be a fish (with no fins), hence Samek; but if it is K it would be a hand, and this one would be showing its palm.

SINAI INSCRIPTION 350 & 352

We now return to Mine L and confront two damaged and difficult inscriptions, 350 and 352.

The sequence NSsB can be seen at the bottom of 350, presumably referring to the prefect again. The 'N at the top could be the first person pronoun, saying 'I am' (a variation on 'This is ...", as in inscription 356), followed by KBShN ('furnace'), with ownership attributed to the prefect (or 'the house of the prefect', if the reading BT Sh can be sustained). The next column has 'HB near the top, and presumably the phrase 'beloved of Ba`alat' was there.

Regarding 352, I have inserted the fragment 366 into its left side, producing M'HB'LT. Gordon Hamilton (2006, 345, n. 7) is extremely dubious; but if that is not the right missing piece then there must be one just like it among the rock debris in front of Mine L. My guess is that there is a K (hand) obliterated in the worn section below the very clear M at the top of column 3; this would produce the word MK, meaning 'mine' (as in 354 and 379).

Here is a photograph of 352, issued by W.M.F. Petrie, with a drawing by Herbert Huffmon, published by W.F. Albright, modified by Benjamin Sass to include the large fish which Albright had excluded.

For the other two columns, I see 'Sh (top right), which could be 'fire', and its owners follow as BN KR 'sons of the furnace' (an expression we heard with reference to Asa 'the smith' on the sphinx statuette, 345). Incidentally, the R can look very rough at first glance (as a small head on a thick neck), but quite stylish if the top is seen as the hair and the rest as the face looking leftwards. Then comes the fish, two or three snakes, another K (with two lines below it, possibly a mouth, standing for P). My drawing tries to find a box in the bottom corner rather than a snake, and beneath the fish `LT (to produce Ba`alat, with the B above the fish); but it seems safer to follow the drawing above, with two or more cases of N. We already know that these inscriptions can meander, even though they have columns and lines to follow; examples: 365, back and front; 346, side, where the two snakes of NSsBN ('prefects') are put together under the other letters. Accordingly, if we arrange the letters in the order NSKN, we have 'pourers', another word for smiths. If the two parallel lines were not P but Dh, they could define their role as 'pourers of copper', with the N functioning as a rebus: the sounds of NHhSh ('snake') standing for NHhSh 'copper' (which has a final T in Phoenician and Hebrew, but not in Arabic, but there could possibly be a T near the fish).

Similarly, the ' Sh and the MSh at the top of the stela might form a unit as 'the melt-fire' (the fire used in the furnace for melting the metal).

Below the break, column 2 has: L Sh T L B, and then the fish. LShT might mean 'for the the Lady' (or 'the pit')' LB could say 'for the house' (B as a logogram, standing for the word for 'house'), possibly meaning the temple on the site. Perhaps the writer intended the `LT to be used for B`LT in both columns, hence 'for the Lady, for Ba`alat'.

My basic assumption is that the Canaanite miners and metal-workers of successive expeditions, had put up their own particular signs on this mine (L). This would explain the repetition in the various stelas engraved on the rock.

SINAI INSCRIPTION 349

This is another inscription on the rock face at the entrance to Mine L. The text begins at the top, with a clear ox-head, followed by a snake and a cross, giving the word 'NT, 'unutu, 'equipment', as in the the garden equipment inscription on the wall inside Mine L (357).

[1] This (Dh) is the equipment ('NT) of (Sh) [2] the chief of the prefects (RB NSsBN) ... [3] apparatus (`RK) ....

Notice the K, which is an upraised hand, pictorial not a stick-figure. In the remaining lines, too many of the letters have been obscured. The apparatus would be for the mining and metalworking, presumably.

The new letter was Tt, and it is the Egyptian sign for 'goodness' and 'beauty', and with the Semitic word t.ab ('good') it yields the sound Tt.

For a discussion of all the proto-alphabetic letters and their relation to Egyptian hieroglyphs, go to Alphabet and Hieroglyphs.

For more details about the inscriptions examined here, refer to:
Brian E. Colless, The proto-alphabetic inscriptions of Sinai, Abr-Nahrain/Ancient Near Eastern Studies 28 (1990) 1-52 (available from Peeters website).

2007-10-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

PROTO-ALPHABETIC LETTERS AND HIEROGLYPHS:
GORDON HAMILTON'S EARLY ALPHABET THESIS

Gordon J. Hamilton has theorized on the beginnings of the letters of the alphabet in The Origins of the West Semitic Alphabet in Egyptian Scripts (2006), 433 pages. He argues that all the letters of the alphabet derive from Egyptian hieroglyphs. His main source of data is the corpus of West Semitic inscriptions from the Egyptian turquoise mines in the Sinai Peninsula; these have long been known as the 'Proto-Sinaitic' inscriptions, but both of us have set that term aside; other inscriptions of the same family have turned up elsewhere, and whether they are found in Egypt, Sinai, or Syria-Palestine, they are 'Proto-Canaanite', in language and script. I have added the term 'proto-alphabetic' to the discussion, meaning that they are connected with the 'proto-alphabet', the original prototype of the alphabet.

In the decades he was working on this thesis (1983-2005) he was unaware of the existence of more inscriptional evidence from ancient Thebes. We can test his case against this additional material (published by William Flinders Petrie in 1912 as the frontispiece of his book The Formation of the Alphabet). The most important of these is a copy of the proto-alphabet (Thebes 1), reproduced here.

My drawing shows most of what I see amid the faded paint-marks, but I have a bias: I have been working on this question throughout the same period, and I think these tablets give support to my proposed system (though my paradigm was constructed before I knew of the existence of this controlling evidence). My own table of values and identifications for the Egyptian hieroglyphs behind the original signs of the West Semitic alphabet is now available on the web, and the latest version is at the end of this article. Note that in my view not every letter of the proto-alphabet had an Egyptian counterpart; and all certainly did not survive into the Greco-Roman alphabet.

But that is not the only witness we have: another copy of the letters of the proto-alphabet is found on two ostraca from the same collection (Thebes 2 + 3):

At the outset (p.1) Hamilton states his three aims, for studying each of the original letters:
[1] isolating its graphic prototype(s) in Egyptian writing
(D: O31, door; also K1, fish);
[2] ascertaining its typologically earliest graphic forms
(door with post; also fish with fins);
[3] establishing the meaning of its acrophonic name(s)
(dalt, door; also dag, fish).

The examples I have provided show that Hamilton believes two different characters were used for D. In what follows, I will call such doublets 'allographs' (if this word is already known to you with another meaning, then I apologize, and I will change it here if a better term is offered to me). Incidentally, I will argue that the fish-sign is not D but S, and I am not alone in holding this opinion.

An important detail in his case is the acceptance of 'the acrophonic principle' (see his third aim) as the main factor in the formation of the proto-alphabet; the term 'acrophony' ('summit sounding', Greek akron 'peak', phone 'voice, sound') is not found in ordinary dictionaries, but the word 'acronym' helps to explain it; an acronym is a name or noun made up from the initial letters of a set of words (NATO, laser); in acrophony the top sound of a word that describes the picture or symbol (D from dalt 'door', which still shows its door shape, and its Hebrew name is Dalet, its Greek name is Delta; no hint of a fish). When a syllabary is being constructed, the first syllable of the word is sounded (DA from dalt 'door' in the West Semitic syllabary).

Denial of the role of acrophony in the formation of West Semitic and other scripts was a feature of the I. J. Gelb's manual of 'Grammatology' (A Study of Writing, 1963), a word that is worth retaining, I think; ironically the syllabograms of the Luwian logo-syllabary, or 'Hittite hieroglyphs', which he helped to decipher, are obviously acrophonic. In the footsteps of Gelb, Barry Powell (2009, 175-186, 255) continues to regard acrophony as 'a discredited theory', which is to be discarded. Powell has a good understanding of the Egyptian writing system (a logo-consonantary, though he insists on calling it a logo-syllabary, after Gelb), and he knows that in the Iron Age the Phoenician consonantary (again he bows to Gelb and regards it as a syllabary) became the Greek alphabet; but he pontificates on the West Semitic scripts and inscriptions of the Bronze Age from a standpoint of ignorance and inexperience, denying any connection or continuity between the proto-alphabetic inscriptions (from Canaan, Sinai, and Egypt) and the Phoenician script. As for the West Semitic syllabary, the Byblian 'pseudo-hieroglyphic' script, which he accepts as a an undeciphered syllabary, 'with no clear forbears and no successors', he wonders whether Aegean writing provided a model for it (p. 186). We know better than that: the West Semitic syllabary goes back at least to 2300 BCE, and Powell has the Cretan syllabary possibly arising around 2100 BCE (p. 129), and the Luwian syllabary about 1300 BCE; and in my view these are acrophonic systems, and the pattern for them was provided by the ubiquitous Canaanites.

Since Gordon Hamilton first submitted his thesis, at Harvard University in 1985, two new Proto-Canaanite graffiti have been found in southern Egypt, in the Wadi el-Hol, near Thebes, and this discovery gave his work a new impetus. One is horizontal, the other is vertical. The signs are reproduced on the right side of the Sinai-Egypt column on my table.

However, Hamilton has not only overlooked the other inscriptions, from Thebes (see above), but he has also neglected to consider the Canaanite syllabary, which contains many of the signs of the proto-alphabet, and these had been undergoing their own development before they changed from being syllabic to consonantal (for example: BA to consonantal B). These are shown on the BS column of my table.

The cuneiform alphabet has obviously been designed on the basis of the pictographic proto-alphabet, and this is another useful aid in testing our proposed identifications for Proto-Canaanite signs; but Hamilton does not utilize it in his blinkered approach. They appear on the Canaan column of my table.

As already stated, at the end of this article I have appended a detailed table of my own solution to the problem, and the reader could print out a copy to consult as a useful and reliable map while traversing the rough terrain I have created below.

We will work our way through the proto-alphabetic letters, relating Hamilton's opinions to mine, and to the Thebes proto-alphabet tablets. We should start with the uncontroversial characters. If I have found an equivalent 'syllabogram' in the West Semitic syllabary, I will note that in square brackets.

The order of presentation is this:
[1]'A [2]R [3]` [4]Kh [5]Dh [6]L [7]M [8]N [9]B [10]H [11]Y [12]K [13]G [14]P [15]Q [16]Ss [17]S [18]D [19]Hh [20]Tt [21]W [22]Sh [23]Th [24]T [25]Z [26]Zz [27]Gh [28](Dd)

Index:
'A[1] B[9] G[13] D[18] H[10] W[21] Z[25] Dh[5] Hh[19] Kh[4] Tt[20] Zz[26] Y[11] K[12] L[6] M[7] N[8] S[17] `[3] Gh[27] P[14] Ss[16] Q[15] R[2] Sh[22] Th[23] T[24]

[1] 'Alep (No 1: p. 29-38) [Syllabic 'A]
Greek Alpha is certainly from Canaanite 'alep ('alpu 'ox'); when A is inverted, the horns and snout are clearly visible. So, aim 3 is covered already: the initial consonant of the word is ' (glottal stop). With regard to aim 1, he says that the letter "derives from the Egyptian hieroglyph F1", which depicts the profiled head of an ox. The tables I have published say the same thing, but in his working out of aim 2, Hamilton tries to find an Egyptian prototype for all the variations of ox-head we see in the Canaanite script. The Egyptian model has horns, an eye, an ear, and little or no indication of a mouth. The two Wadi el-Hol examples lack the ear, and have a clearly delineated mouth. I would prefer to believe that a Canaanite scribe was merely expected to draw a recognizable ox-head. That is what we see on the Thebes proto-alphabet tablets (Thebes 1, top left corner; Thebes 2, in a similar position, but notice it has two eyes, a unique feature, apparently, not found on Egyptian hieroglyph F1; and it has a neck).

[2] R (24: 221-231) [Syllabic RA]
R (resh, ra'sh) "derives from the Egyptian hieroglyph D1", showing a human head in profile. Agreed, but no Canaanite example matches exactly with any Egyptian prototype, and the three Wadi el-Hol heads (1.1, 1.16, 2.4) are all different from one another. It seems to me that all the instances cited are rough-hewn heads obeying no artistic or epigraphic laws. The R on the Thebes 1 proto-alphabet is on the left side, the third sign from the top. It is lying down, having a single-line neck, no mouth, but an eye, and, apparently, a hair line. The presumed R on Thebes 2 is at the bottom of the left side.

[3] `ayin (19: 180-188) [Syllabic `A]
The source is hieroglyph D4, 'eye'. Again, surely the idea was simply to draw an eye, with or without the pupil. The `ayin on the Thebes 1 proto-alphabet is in the bottom left corner. Does it have a pupil, or is that the stem of the cactus-plant (it is meant to be a hand, K) sticking into it? In the Egyptian examples that Hamilton presents, I cannot see a perfect match for the Wadi el-Hol horizontal eye, or the Sinai 345 and Lahun vertical characters (182-183); actually there are two cases on the sphinx (S 345), and the one under the Egyptian inscription has a counterpart in the middle of Thebes 3 [ (-|] the curved part does not quite meet the straight line.

[4] Kh (4: 57-60)
This is a letter that disappeared from the alphabet, but it derives from V28, which has the value Hh (h.) in Egyptian. It looks like a twisted thread, a hank of yarn, and I have suggested the name Khayt ('thread') for it. Hamilton argues that it is a wick of twisted flax, and offers a picture of such a wick (Fig. 2.14). He invokes an Ethiopic name for it, kharam. Whatever its precise reference, it did exist, and it can be found in the bottom right corner of Thebes 1, and in the middle of Thebes 3 (below the eye, with some of its lines faded), in both instances apparently with two loops, not three as at Wadi el-Hol; both forms are also found in Egyptian writing, and in the Sinai inscriptions, though Hamilton has overlooked the three-looped example on 376, and has misconstrued DY as Kh on 365b. His assertion on the stance of Kh (59), that the Egyptian hieroglyph and the letter are always upright, is not supported by the horizontal instance on the Thebes tablets.

[5] Dh (16: 145-154) [Syllabic allograph DhA/ZA]
Another lost alphabetic letter. In the Iron Age the sounds dh and z coalesced, and the Z-sign then covered both (holding its position following Waw, while Dh disappeared, allowing M and N to stand side by side). There is no difference of opinion about the character representing Dh: it is a pair of parallel lines, and it is found on the Theban tablet 1 in the first column on the left, above the head (though they are not strictly parallel). As regards its hieroglyphic connection, in 1988 I suggested either Z4 ('duality') or D13 (eyebrow(s), Semitic *dhayp). Hamilton rejects my eyebrow hypothesis, because two wavy lines never occur in the Proto-Canaanite inscriptions; this is true, but I am intrigued by a character on another of Petrie's ostraka from Thebes, consisting of a stroke above an eye (lower left region of the tablet on the left, Thebes 2), though it may be merely an `ayin with an extra flourish. However, the cuneiform alphabet's Dh-sign consists of a simple wedge together with an angle-wedge (as used for the `ayin-sign, representing an eye), and this is a perfect match for that character on Thebes ostrakon 2.

Hamilton relates the duality sign acrophonically to Semitic *dhayn ('these two'). A case where the sign is on the right slant for Z4 (\\) is on the Sinai bi-lingual sphinx, and the scribe 'Asa obviously knew Egyptian (note the hieroglyphic text on the statuette).

[6] L (14: 126-137)
"The letter lamed has only one definite source in Egyptian writing: V1, 'coil of rope'." (Hamilton, 126). Really? Some of us have thought that it was S39, 'crook', but many of the examples do have very curly (or 'coily') tops. L may have had both origins (or neither!), and the two versions would therefore be allographs (alternative signs for the same sound; see notes on S, for example). The root l-m-d (in the letter's name) refers to 'training' and 'learning'; the rope or the stick could both have such an association. The example on the Thebes 1 proto-alphabet is in the same column as the ox (by coincidence!), to the left of the eye, looking exactly like an italic l, and apparently representing a walking-stick rather than a rope. Thebes 2 has a crook for L, bottom line (with one of the many mysterious dots accompanying it).

[7] M (15: 138-144) [Syllabic MU, and MI]
Hieroglyph N35 stands for 'water' (mu, maym), with its zigzag line representing waves (with many peaks and troughs). It is undoubtedly the inspiration for M in the alphabet. M is found on the Thebes 1 proto-alphabet at the bottom of the tablet; start with the drawing, and then look for the thin faint line on the photograph. A search may also be made at the bottom of Thebes 3 (bottom left corner); the double triangle on Thebes 2, top line, resembles an Arabian form of M, with a line closing it off (like M underlined); but this is most likely the B (see 9 below). M is one of the characters that shows that the inventer of the proto-alphabet really did borrow Egyptian hieroglyphs. Hamilton notes there are also vertical forms (N35B) in both systems, and it should be noted here that in the West Semitic syllabic usage, as I see it, the vertical syllabogram stands for MI (presumably from mit.ru 'rain', and a simplification of N4 representing the sky with four vertical wavy lines for the rain). Hamilton (143) and I agree on a principle of economical use of space operating in the Hol inscriptions: horizontal M on the column, vertical M on the line. The same applies to the snakes representing N, but the serpent between `ayin and T on the vertical inscription (in the divine name `aNaT) is W in Hamilton's view. Further confirmation is provided by the vertical forms of B (house), P (mouth), and Th (breast) on this horizontal line. When the number of peaks is reduced to two (/\/\) there is a possibility of confusion with Sh/Th (\/\/) and this might explain why M was closed off at the bottom or the top (according to its stance in a particular case) in the Arabian script.

[8] N (17: 154-171) [Syllabic NA]
Even in its Greco-Roman form, N shows its origin as a snake (nahhash); the original sign has two graphic variants, representing two kinds of snake: I9 (cobra) and I10 (viper). It is an erect cobra that we see on the Thebes 1 proto-alphabet (top right ). There is an example on Thebes 3, which is just like N (though in reverse).

[9] B (2: 38-52) [Syllabic BA]
The name Beyt (Greek Beta) applied to the B-sign shows its 'house' connections. Hamilton relates the graphic variants (or perhaps allographs) to O1 'house', and O4 'hut'. Neither of these cover the house with a porch, though Hamilton adduces a drawing of an Egyptian soul-house with such an entrance. The Wadi el-Hol B seems to be a hut; it has a vertical stance to save space on the horizontal line. Another puzzle seems to have been solved through Hamilton's method: the standard Egyptian form of O1 is rectangular with a doorway in the middle of the bottom line, but the normal proto-alphabetic shape is square, usually with a gap in a bottom corner; hieroglyph O1B could account for this. The example on the Thebes tablet 1 (top right) comes as a surprise, though it is certainly B, because it corresponds to a form of B in the Phoenician alphabet and one version of BA in the syllabary (as shown on my table); but it does not have an Egyptian counterpart in the evidence Hamilton adduces. A similar form is at the top of Thebes 2, next to a door (D).

[10] H (6: 76-86) [Syllabic HI]
Here Hamilton and I are agreed that the basic hieroglyph is A28, 'man with both arms raised'. It is a determinative marker for 'joy' and 'high', so I relate it to *hillulu, which carries ideas of exultation and exaltation (as in Halleluyah). Hamilton plumps for interjections, such as Hoy. He has overlooked the cases where the sign is inverted, as in Sinai 358, and for a model we could look to A29, 'man upside-down' (standing on hands and head). Also, on the three Wadi el-Hol examples, two of the figures have one arm pointing down (2.5, 1.11). Invoking A1, 'seated man' seems odd, given that both his arms are pointing forward; an obvious choice would be A32, 'man dancing' (one arm up, the other across his chest), likewise a determinative for 'joy' and 'jubilation'. However, on the Thebes 1 tablet the H (under the B) is not clearly discernible; on the photograph we can make out a head and an upraised arm, and the other arm (meeting the tail of the snake) may or may not be pointing downwards; there is a stick-body, and legs apparently pointing outwards. Ultimately, of course, the body will drop away, leaving what became Greco-Roman E. Searching for H on Thebes 2 + 3 raises a dilemma: the pitchfork figure on Thebes 2, at the end of the middle line (with three dots on one side and two on the other) would be H, on the model of A29 (as in Sinai 358); it would not be K, which is on Thebes 3 (top, centre).

[11] Y (11: 108-116)
We are now confronted with the problem of distinguishing Y and K. My rough rule is that Y (Yod, 'hand') is a forearm with a hand, while K (Kap, 'palm, hand') is a hand with fingers shown. Another way of looking at it is: Y-signs resemble Y, and K-signs resemble K. Hieroglyph D36 is the basic model for Y: an arm viewed from the side, with the elbow included at one end and the thumb raised at the other. Hamilton complicates the situation by adding D47, 'hand with curved palm' (showing the wrist but not the arm); this is a variant of D46, the basic model for K. If we need an Egyptian prototype at all, D36 (on my table) is sufficient: for Wadi el-Hol 2.8b (which has been ignored by everyone except Hamilton and myself); for the very simple Y in the middle of Thebes 3; and for the Y on the Thebes 1 proto-alphabet (bottom left, under the eye), which is like the Y on the Sinai sphinx (but an ax and Z for Hamilton); in all these cases the elbow has simply been omitted. The Sinai example where the elbow is intact (S365B) has not been recognized by Hamilton, but in combination with an adjacent D it has been consigned to his collection of Kh-signs (see 4 above).

[12] K (12: 116-123) [Syllabic KA]
I have said that K (Kap) shows a hand with fingers, and that is what we find in the texts; but no Egyptian hieroglyph has a model for that, though Hamilton and I both refer to D46 as a model, simply because it is a hand; but Hamilton points out that some examples in its history mark the fingers with lines (numbered D46D). Unfortunately, there is no K in the Wadi el-Hol texts. Hamilton cites only a few Proto-Canaanite instances; the main reason is that he has inadvertently placed several of them in other boxes, notably Ss (as papyrus plants) and Y. The example on the Thebes tablet 1 is above the eye and to the left of L; its stem is poking into the eye; it has three digits; the middle one is the longest; it represents a hand and wrist. I should add in passing that the West Semitic syllabary has a character that looks exactly like K (see the BS column of my table), and apparently has the value KI (presumably from kippat, 'palm-branch'). Consequently, there may be two allographs for K in the proto-alphabet: palm-of-hand and palm-branch.

We are only halfway through the proto-alphabet, and already there are serious differences arising between Hamilton's theory and my suggested paradigm. Great chasms will now open up between his proposals for identifying the letters and the confirming evidence available to us. In my judgement, Hamilton's remaining identifications will be either faulty or false.

[13] G (3: 53-57) [Syllabic GA]
G is equivalent to hieroglyphs T14 and T15, 'throw-stick', or 'boomerang'; the West Semitic word for it is gaml. Agreed. Yet Hamilton asserts that there are no known instances from the Bronze Age. On the contrary, there are numerous examples (see my table): in the syllabary on the one hand, and in the Sinai texts on the other (for example, gn 'garden', six times). Hamilton has perversely consigned them to the P-box (20: 188-196), where they are hypothetically tied to a word *pi, supposedly meaning 'wall-corner'. Yet, this character rarely appears as a true right angle; it is mostly obtuse, as boomerangs usually are; it would thus appear that the Sinai scribes could draw square houses with four right angles, but not right-angled wall-corners, even though the Egyptian sign is rigidly right-angled. Hamilton has taken up a speculative idea that was created by twentieth-century scholars and has doggedly defended it, while describing it as "one of the least transparent combinations of acrophone and graphic images in the early alphabet" (196). There is a throw-stick on each of the Wadi el-H.ol graffiti, which Hamilton regards as cases of P. On the Thebes tablet 1, G stands above K and next to R, as a right angle; but the true P-sign, I submit, is over to the left of H. There is a nice boomerang in the centre of Thebes 2.

[14] P (195) [Syllabic PU]
Hamilton admits that the name of the letter goes back to a West Semitic word for 'mouth', and yet he does not support this (and hieroglyph D21 mouth) as the original sign. On the Wadi el-Hol graffiti (1 horizontal, 2 vertical) he chooses the two boomerangs (2.9, 1.9) for P, overlooking the obvious mouth (1.13), though it is in a vertical stance, (|), and has an unusual line separating the lips, to be compared with this scribe's practice of marking the ox's mouth with a line (1.12, right next to 1.13), and also according to the principle (acknowledged by us both) that long signs can have a vertical stance in horizontal lines (likewise M, N, B, Th in this context). On the Thebes 1 proto-alphabet, P is represented by a mouth (top lip a straight line, bottom lip rounded), to the left of H; it seems to have a tongue, as does the clearer counterpart on Thebes 2, bottom right. Another clear example (though without the tongue) is on Thebes ostrakon 4.

Here it combines with Dh (double lines) to produce the word padh, 'fine gold'. Note also, from the left, L (the sign probably has a longer line than shown in my drawing, but it could perhaps be considered as a throw-stick, though the acute angle would negate that possibility), Z (double triangle), Q (cord wound on stick), W (or Tt if there is a crossbar on the stem), and K (note the longer middle digit, and the short arm, indicating that this is not H, as a person standing on the hands, like the example on Thebes 2; see 10 above).

[15] Q [Syllabic Q-]
I have constantly argued that Q has its origin in a cord wound around a stick, the 'line' (Hebrew qaw) used by builders (Colless 1988, 49). This is the form that Q has in the South Arabian alphabet. The sign corresponds to Egyptian V24, as in Thebes ostrakon 4, above;

On Thebes ostrakon 1, Q is below the P, and one of its top lines is touching the tongue poking out from the mouth; this form is like hieroglyph V25, where the additional stroke represents the end of the cord; an equivalent Q is in a prone position on the left side of Thebes 3 (with a horizontal stem, a dot and <) below N; another such example is found on the Sinai sphinx in the word nqy, 'my offering'. Hamilton (23: 209-221) has completely ignored this possibility. Instead he has chosen the Ss-sign as Q, because scholars before him have thought a word in the Sinai inscriptions was nqbn, 'borers' (meaning 'miners') and not n-ss-b-n, 'prefects' or 'overseers'. He has taken up the Hebrew name Qop, 'monkey', and turned a bag into a baboon. This is certainly worth trying, given that an ox, a snake, and a fish also appear in the proto-alphabet; but one is in danger of making a monkey for one's back, when the evidence for the true Q is so patent.

[16] Ss
In 1988 (48-49) I published my support for the idea first suggested by A. van den Branden that the model for the sign we identified as Ss (S.adé) was hieroglyph V33, a tied bag (Semitic ss-r-r). Hamilton (197, n 254) dismisses this suggestion as "bizarre", but his rejection of it may prove to be much more so. Looking at the Thebes 1 proto-alphabet, Hamilton will need to fit the sign below the 'alep (ox-head) into his system; he can not claim the K below it as a clump of papyrus (M15, his choice for Ss); this is certainly a bag tied at the top, and we seem to be stuck with it for Ss. It produces six plausible words in the Sinai inscriptions (Colless 1990, 5). In isolation, it can be mistaken for the fish, but they are easily differentiated on this tablet (the fish is right next to it). On Thebes 2, it is in the top right corner, inverted, while the fish is to the left of the boomerang, in the middle line.

[17] S (18:172-180, column) [Syllabic SA] (5b: 66-75. fish)
The fish stands for S, and there can be no equivocation about this; but because samak ('fish') is only attested in Arabic, and because dag is the common West Semitic word for 'fish', W. F. Albright and his school have insisted that the fish represents D. Typically, Hamilton follows this traditional line, but he recognizes that the argument for D as a door (dalt, Greek Delta) is compelling, so he accepts them both as allographs for D ('alternate pictographs'; cp. Cross 2003, 316). Not so. The fish is S, and its allograph is the S that Hamilton recognizes, a column (samk), derived from R11 (now known to be a spinal column, rather than 'a bundle of stalks tied together'). Unfortunately, the purported instances cited by Hamilton are of his own manufacture; only the fish is attested in proto-alphabetic texts from Sinai, though both are attested in Canaan (see the two rows for S on my table). The column (--|-|-| or --|-|) is present in the West Semitic syllabary (though not the fish); and it is found on the Lakish Dagger (incomprehensibly transcribed as T by Hamilton, 391); it became the standard S in the Phoenician alphabet. The door and the fish can not be allographs for the same sound, as they are found together in Sinai 376 (in the name 'Asa and in dwt, 'sickness'); and yet Hamilton (p. 379) transcribes both as d. In the Thebes proto-alphabet tablets both signs occur, in proximity: on Thebes 2 the door (D) is at the top, and the fish (S) is in the middle line; on Thebes 1 the fish (S) is situated in the centre (top), with the door (D) to the right of it; I realize that Hamilton could see this as an ax (T7), and hence Z in his system (92-97); but we have already observed (on Thebes ostrakon 4, above) that Z consists of two triangles, and Z will receive more attention below. Note that in the cuneiform alphabet the two forms are both represented (as shown on my table): the normal S (two small wedges atop a longer vertical wedge, presumably the fish); and `S (seven wedges clearly depicting the 'telegraph pole', the spinal column), which was used for transcribing Hurrian words. It seems that both are also found on Thebes 2: the enigmatic figure above the fish and beside the door is the spinal S; if its 2 dots are joined we have two cross bars on a stem with a trumpet-bell base (as on the hieroglyph R11). On the far right of Thebes 1 there are marks (but the photograph has cut off the full picture), and the other Samek might be here. The Arabian S (S3) is obviously derived from the fish.

[18] D (5a:61-66, door) [Syllabic DA]
The door (dalt, Greek Delta) that represents D has a post, and may have two or more panels; all these details accord with the forms of the Egyptian model, O31; the cuneiform D (comprising 6 wedges) also conforms to this pattern. Greek Delta is a triangle, in line with Phoenician D; this could simply have developed out of the rectangular D (note that one version of the Arabian letter D is a triangle attached to a vertical line, the doorpost), but it has been suggested (by H. Jensen in his book on scripts) that it came out of a another kind of door, namely a tent-door, a triangular flap. In this regard, I have proposed that the puzzling triangular character on Sinai 357 (no 19) is a tent-door, given that the workers lived in tents (Sinai 365). The door on the Thebes 1 proto-alphabet is square, with a long post, to the left of the B, in the top right area; the example on Thebes 2 (top line, centre) is rectangular (and not joined securely to its post). This predominant form, with its defining post, could not be confused with Hh in the proto-alphabetic period, and yet Hamilton (63) supposes that a fish-D was introduced for this reason; he needs this hypothesis only because he and others have not discerned the original Hh, but have put a fence in its place.

[19] Hh
The field is now narrowed, and we can recognize Hh as the divided rectangle in the top left corner of the Thebes 1 proto-alphabet; it is more elusive on Thebes 2 and 3, perhaps the smudged marks in an identical position on ostrakon 2, or a larger ghostly edifice on 3, above Y. Hamilton (9: 97-102) defends a surmise beloved of the Albright school that Hhet is a fence, and he offers hieroglyph O42 as the Egyptian origin for it. I cannot refute this, and it is very tempting, but if it is true then I would have to admit it as an allograph. The only two Sinai examples he adduces are taken from an inscription that is rather illegible (375a), but I am happy to accept them as Hh, though as a dwelling with three compartments, rather than a fence (one is in a vertical stance, the other horizontal). This sound (hh, h.) should have more occurrences in a collection of West Semitic inscriptions; by my calculations, it appears in Ugaritic texts in the 16th position of frequency, out of 26; and my choice for Hh in the Sinai corpus achieves 12th place, with seven appearances (including the two alleged fences): two have a rectangle divided into two squares, and one of the squares is also divided [360, 361]; one has the double-square with a semi-circular courtyard [380]; the other two have a square with a round courtyard [353, 356]. Hamilton deposits my examples in his B-box, which is understandable, since this is another form of house, with the addition of a courtyard, rounded or square. I do not connect this with an Egyptian hieroglyph, because it is a West Asian style of mansion (attested in the Hyksos domain in the Nile Delta); but if pressed I would refer to O6 (rectangular enclosure seen in plan), Egyptian h.wt, 'mansion', and likewise used for the consonant Hh. My proposal for the Semitic name of the original letter is h.as.ir, 'court', 'mansion', applied to the home built for Ba`al. The example on the Thebes 1 tablet may have had a curved wall on the left side, but it is now unclear. Eventually some of the walls will fall away, leaving H, in the Grecian and Roman alphabets.

[20] Tt [Syllabic TtA]
The Phoenician Ttet, and the early form of Greek Theta, is a cross within a circle: (x) or (+). Hamilton (10:103-108) takes this as his starting point (extracting a dubious instance from the obscurity of Sinai 375a). He calls in O49, 'crossroads', the determinative for 'town'. This is a rare letter, and it could well be absent from the Sinai corpus. However, I have identified it as the cross-plus-circle sign in Sinai 351 (Hamilton sees it as H on its side): +o. This is a significant piece for the argument that the proto-alphabet was closely connected with the Egyptian system: it is the nfr sign denoting 'good' and 'beautiful', and therefore perfectly matching Semitic t.ab, 'good/beautiful'. It is also found in the syllabary, for TtA (T.A). It is the tall letter to the left of Q and below the fish on the Thebes 1 proto-alphabet; Thebes 3 has a large example (top left, o+). The rarity of this character makes it difficult to decide whether +o and (+) are allographs with different acrophonic origins, or the one has developed into the other, with the cross simply moving into the circle.

Hamilton (106-108) toys with the name T.êt. and the word t.ît., 'clay' of the streets, connecting it with the Egyptian character O49 (town with streets). Allowing more than one sign for Tt (as with S: fish and spine), other possibilities for (+) are: t.awar (Hbr t.îrâh) 'enclosure with wall'; t.ene' 'basket' (from Egyptian dnyt), later Hbr t.nî (I would invoke the Cretan sign for KA, which has the same form, and represents a cane-basket, in my personal view; the Egyptian wickerwork-basket character V30 is shown in side-view and gives no indication of cross-weaving).

[21] W [Syllabic WA]
Waw seems to be basically a circle on a stem; there is an example above the Tt on Sinai 351 (acknowledged as W by Hamilton, 343). Albright had suggested this was a mace, and Hamilton (7: 86-92) has no doubt that the letter derives from T3, a mace. The fact that it has a knob on top leads him to bring in some examples of Q, not realizing that the one or two projections at the top of Q (cord on stick) are what distinguish proto-alphabetic Q from W. Later, the Q will take the form of W, and the circle of W will open up: --( . Already in the syllabary WA was an open hook (see the BS column on my table). The word waw occurs in the Hebrew Bible (used for the hooks from which the curtains in the Tent-Temple were suspended). Where is it on the Thebes proto-alphabet tablets? On Thebes 1 it must be the square sign with a short stem and a jagged edge, on the left side, next to K; another example with a square top, but a long stem, is on Thebes 2, middle line, right side. Is it a weapon or a curtain-hook? I find an example (1.3) on one of the Wadi el-Hol graffiti (horizontal): rb wn, 'much wine'. My feeling is that there was no hieroglyph available for this word waw, and so the Canaanite scribes simply drew the object they knew. Hamilton (91) wants to derive the word waw ('hook' or 'peg') from the name of the letter (the mace came to look like a 'peg' and so it became the word for it); an unnecessary surmise, given that very few West Semitic nouns start with w, and this one was ideal for representing WA and W.

[22] Sh [Syllabic ShI/ThI]
Where do we start on this thorny problem? Hamilton (13: 123-126), and others, can find only one Proto-Canaanite attestation of Sh: the triangular sign on Sinai 357 (number 19 on my drawing), which he relates, plausibly enough, to hieroglyph M44, 'thorn'. (His attempts to find other instances on 375 and 376 are not acceptable, as he admits, 124, n 144). At this point we should remember an important detail to assist our search: when Sh and Th coalesced in the Iron Age, the sign that survived under the name Shin was Th, not Sh, because Th was in the position near the end of the alphabet, whereas Sh was in the middle, between K and L. But is this thorn really the Sh that was lost? I have suggested that it is a variant of D (see 18 D, above), and I can not find it on the Thebes proto-alphabet tablets. My proposed identification for Sh is the sun (shimsh), based on hieroglyph N5 (a circle, with or without a dot in the centre) for the syllabary (ShI/ThI), and for the proto-alphabet N6 (a circle with a serpent). In the cuneiform alphabet, both forms for Sh appear as allographs. But if it is true that N6 did not exist before the New Kingdom (16th century BCE), then the Sinai and Wadi el-Hol inscriptions must date from that period. Here is an example of this sign in a West Semitic (syllabic) inscription (Thebes ostrakon 6).

The sun-sign (circle with snake) is the fifth from the left. Before I had ever seen this character used in West Semitic writing, I had guessed (in Colless 1988, p. 51) that the Proto-Canaanite Sh was this sun-sign with the sun-disc omitted. The Albright school takes that character to be a 'composite bow', for which a word *thann is concocted, and the value Th is imposed on it. I am being sceptical, though our confirmatory source could well provide comfort to this hypothesis: when we look for the sign on the Thebes proto-alphabet we have a choice between a fairly clear character between Q and Kh, and an obscure one below Kh (both in the lower right section).

The latter sign would be Sh, by my criteria, as a sun-serpent without the sun disc, and yet it certainly looks like hieroglyph Aa32 (alias J32A), 'archaic bow'. Can I make room for an allograph of Sh or Th? Or is it a coincidence that in its development this sun-sign came to look like a bow-sign? I will continue to maintain that this is the Sh-sign that disappeared, and that the other similar character to the left of Kh is the one that survived as Shin (also encompassing Th).

Looking ar Thebes Ostrakon 3 (on the right), we can find both Sh and Th. On the far right we see Sh (faint but clear, next to T, a cross); it has a vertical stance; its central peak is rounded; there is no obvious sun-disc, but there are possible traces of one. The breast-sign for Th is in the middle section; it has a sharp central peak, and this is the form that later Sh/Th will have. (Incidentally, the fact that these two are missing from Thebes 2, on the left, suggests that they form a single document.)

Can we seek assistance from the Wadi el-Hol lines of letters? I suggest that 2.2 and 2.10 (vertical) are forms of the sun-sign, Sh. The shape is unusual: the sun-disc and the serpent are there, but the tail is missing. We can see how this could become the Arabian Th [o-o]; but there has been a reversal here, and Arabian Sh [\/\/] would go back to Proto-Canaanite Th, which I connect with thad, 'breast'.

[23] Th [Syllabic ThA/ShA]
As stated in the Sh-section, Hamilton (25: 231-244) has a bow (J32A and also T10) for Th, with a hypothetical *thann as the acrophonic source. For my part, I favour a derivation from thad, 'breast', which has no 'double-breasted' counterpart in the Egyptian inventory. Hamilton (237) presents two breast signs as bows: Wadi el-Hol 1.10 (horizontal) and Sinai 375 (line 3, twice in th-l-th, 'three'). He also cites the Megiddo signet ring (which is clearly syllabic) and its example of ShA/ThA (237, 241). (Elsewhere, 252, he mistakes the character next to it [ShU, 'sceptre'] for a T, but eventually he will have to recognize that this inscription is not consonantal proto-alphabetic but syllabic.) The Thebes proto-alphabet breast sign, which will become the letter Shin in the Iron Age, is to the left of Kh. As with W, Z, and T, the letter Th did not have an Egyptian prototype, in my view.

[24] T [Syllabic TU]
Hamilton (27: 246-253), to achieve a full total of Egyptian sources, produces Z11, 'crossed planks', to go with the simple cross that is the universal signature for the illiterate. The word that goes with it is certainly taw or tu, 'mark', but whereas Proto-Canaanite T can be + or x, Egyptian Z11 is invariably -|- (and it does not need to be brought into the picture at all). As noted above in the Sh-section, there is an example on the far right of Thebes 3. But where is it on Thebes 1? My drawing shows two possibilities: one on the H sign, the other (very small) between the M and the Sh signs. The latter will be my choice, because I need the other for Z.

[25] Z
Hamilton (8: 92-97) derives Z from hieroglyph T7, 'ax', and *zayn, 'weapon'. It is certainly a double triangle, and Hamilton could be right. My proposal is that it represents manacles (handcuffs), for which a word ziqqu exists, but no hieroglyphic prototype. I can find only one instance in the Sinai corpus, also recognized by Hamilton as Z: on the far right of 375a. There are examples of Z on Thebes 3 and 4 (easy to find).

But where is Z on Thebes ostrakon 1?

I have not shown it on my drawing, but a large Z can be made out on the photograph: follow the black line to the right of Kh in the bottom right area; turn north-west along a black line to meet the H figure; go east along a white line for a short distance; then return southwestwards along a white line to Kh. The triangles are not equal, but I think the Z-sign is there. This, not Dh, is the letter that became our Greco-Roman Z.

Lurking somewhere in the dim regions of the Thebes tablets may be the letters Z. and Gh, which are known from the cuneiform alphabet. I think that we may be able to find both of the missing letters there, between Q and Th, and above M.

[26] Z.
Transcribing this letter is problematic, when it is not possible here to put a dot under the consonant; but on the analogy of my Hh, Tt, Ss, it could be Zz. Possibilities for Zz/Z. (a rare sound) are: Z.BY, 'gazelle', or Z.R, 'back'. But the one I have always favoured as a hypothesis is ZzL (Ugaritic; Hebrew s.el 'shade, shadow'). The relevant Egyptian hieroglyph is S35, a sunshade: --|), used as an 'ideogram' in writing shwt 'shadow, shade'. The cuneiform alphabet has three wedges for Zz: =<. The wedge on the right represents a circular element in the original glyph. A small example of Zz is on Thebes 1 above M. An instance of Zz appears on Thebes 3, on the left side, next to N.
[27] Gh
The faint image (next to Zz) that I suggested was a face may be seen as a a vine-stand with grapes hanging from it, hieroglyph M43. Twenty years ago (1988, 63) I noted that the South Arabian Gh, "a baseless square with a diagonal line projecting down from its top left corner", resembles the Egyptian vine-hieroglyph (but with the grapes missing, as on M43A). The acrophonic word would be GhNB, 'grapes'. A possible example appears in the middle of line 3, belowthe fish, on Thebes 2.

[28] (Dd) That covers all the letters. Surely this puzzle has not been solved? What about D./Dd? The Arabian alphabet has a sign for this sound, looking like a door with its post knocked off, and so an adapted form of D? The cuneiform alphabet seems to lack Dd; and in Sinai inscription 356 we find the word SsRHh (s.rh.) "excavation chamber", which has an Arabic counterpart d.arih. "grave". Accordingly it appears that Dd/d. was not one of the West Semitic consonants.

Returning to the book under review, let me say that I am deeply impressed by the massive amount of labour that Gordon Hamilton has put into this project. It was certainly a task well worth undertaking. My big disappointment is that he apparently emerges from it as affirming that if he (or William Foxwell Albright or Frank Moore Cross) thinks a certain character looks like a particular object (and a similar Egyptian hieroglyph) then it must be so. I would have been interested to see him consider all my suggestions along the same lines, rather than dismiss them as bizarre without really testing them.

Realistically, we should not start out on this exercise if we do not know what the original letters of the alphabet are. We could have achieved this knowledge through deciphering the Sinai Proto-Canaanite texts, employing the proper procedure (cryptanalysis). However, without the Thebes proto-alphabet to refer to, we are all merely making stabs in the dark, playing a game of guesswork. And yet, if we compare the signs on the five Theban Proto-Canaanite ostraka (showing 27 characters) with a table of the Phoenician alphabet (22 letters) we can match most of the corresponding signs with ease and determine which ones have fallen out of use (as I see it: Dh, Kh, Sh, Gh, Zz); further comparison with such 'missing links' as the Izbet Sartah abagadary would clarify the fish and column allographs for S (samk), and the evolution of D (dalt, door); the difference between W and Q; the development of Ttet from +o to (+); the obvious simplification of the mouth for P, and the deflating of the tied bag for Ss .

If Gordon Hamilton intends to continue in this field he will need to take account of the six Theban ostraka (they could not be forgeries, by the way, since the West Semitic consonantary and syllabary were unknown to Western scholarship when Petrie published the photographs). He should also look into the West Semitic syllabary, so that he can learn to distinguish the two related systems (at present he still thinks the Megiddo signet ring is consonantal not logo-syllabic, as noted above). His comparison procedure could be applied to the pictosyllabograms of the syllabary; after all it has long been known as "the Byblos pseudo-hieroglyphic script", because it obviously uses Egyptian characters. And, if he believes the Proto-Canaanite alphabet was so dependent on the Egyptian logo-consonantary, then he should ponder whether the proto-alphabet might also be a logo-consonantary, with its letters functioning not only as consonantal acrophonograms, but also as logograms.

The erroneous Albright chart of the original letters of the proto-alphabet is the one you see in museums, on websites, and in books on the alphabet. My feeling is that Hamilton's thesis represents the last dying gasp of the Albrightian system. I myself was once glad to be inside that straitjacket, following the hidebound tradition and propagating its dogmas. But I broke out of it when I discovered the work of Romain Butin on the Proto-Canaanite inscriptions, and from there I found my own way. Ironically, Gordon Hamilton has dedicated his book to the memory of Romain Butin, S.M. (1871-1937).

It remains to be seen whether this book will live up to the reputation which J. Day has bestowed on it already: it "contains a wealth of information and provides a benchmark for future work on the subject" (JSOT 31.5, 2007, 330). Frank Moore Cross (Leaves, 2003, 329) praises it as an "excellent study". In their edition (without translation) of the Wadi el-Hhol early alphabetic inscriptions (2005, 93, n 20) Darnell, Dobbs-Allsopp, Lundberg, McCarter, and Zuckerman (for all of whom I have great respect) describe "this important study" as "by far the most thorough and reliable discussion of the paleography of early alphabetic inscriptions known to us". Actually, it is the only one of its kind, if 'paleography' means not simply the study of ancient writing, or of manuscripts written in ink in particular, but refers rather to dating the characters of writing systems by comparing their forms, and setting up a chronological typology. That is what Cross does, but I tend to think it is not possible for the proto-alphabet. It is certain that the inventer of the West Semitic logo-consonantary, that is, the consonantal proto-alphabet, had the hieroglyphs of the Egyptian logo-consonantary in mind; but that does not mean that all who used this new tool had to conform to the changes each sign went through in its cursive development (hieroglyphic > hieratic). To write R a scribe drew a human head; for G a boomerang; for D a door (or a tent-flap if you lived in a tent at the Sinai mines); for S any kind of fish, or else a spinal column in some regions; for T a cross (x or +, it did not matter); for H a person rejoicing with both arms raised, or dancing with one arm down, or standing on his hands; for N any kind of snake.

However, the first conclusion of this book (Chapter 3) is that "the writers of the early alphabet" (not the first deviser of the West Semitic logo-consonantary) "adopted and adapted thirty-three Egyptian signs". That seems exorbitant for 26 or 27 sounds (especially when set against my supposition that five or more of the letters did not have an Egyptian original).

Hamilton's Table A (270-271) sets out the range of the 33 Egyptian forms borrowed (notably incised hieroglyphic and hieratic). "The major conclusion of this study is that West Semites borrowed and reutilized a pre-existent range of both hieroglyphic and hieratic forms of Egyptian signs for use as letters in their monoconsonantal alphabetic system of writing." In a footnote he adds that this conclusion was also reached by "the epigraphic team of Darnell et al.(2005: esp. 86) based on their very insightful work with the Wadi el-H.ol alphabetic texts". Unfortunately their work also started from a position of unsound knowledge of the original Semitic characters. Their "paleographic chart" (Plate 10, 124) tabulates 14 signs (as against the 16 that Gordon Hamilton recognizes, and the 17 that I can find there) including 6 incorrect identifications, in my view. Hamilton and I have noticed the Y beside the T on the vertical inscription, and everyone else who has written on this subject has overlooked it.

My identifications of the Wadi el-Hhol characters are available elsewhere. I think that the two inscriptions form a single text, inscribed at the same time by one person (his signature is in the two similar ox-heads: 1.12, 2.11). The entire text can be viewed as running leftwards. In my interpretation the first word is MShT (Hebrew mishteh) 'drinking party', and the sequence at the start of the horizontal line is RB WN, 'plenty of wine'; both ideas are consonant with Egyptian inscriptions on the site, which speak of soldiers having celebrations with music and drink for the goddess Hhat-Hhor. The West Semitic deity is `Anat, named (`NT, eye, snake, cross) and depicted on the vertical text, holding a 'handkerchief' (hieroglyph S29, a piece of folded cloth seen in the hands of statues, presumably a mark of distinction). The dancing figure (H) above her name would be a logogram for hillulu, 'celebration'.

In passing, I should mention something fishy: John Darnell and the team of Semitic epigraphers (Dobbs-Allsopp, Lundberg, McCarter, Zuckermann) have excluded from their bibliography the scholars who espouse the identification of the fish-sign as S (Samek) not D (still known as Dalet, 'door'): Butin, van den Branden, Puech, Colless (though Tropper and Briquel-Chatonnet [with an extra -n- between a and t] get through the net. Those who have seen it as D (dag, 'fish') are given due deference: Albright, Cross, Sass, Hamilton. As noted above (under D) Hamilton chooses to have it both ways: the fish and the door are doublets ('alternate pictographs').

Note that my 'linguistic decipherment' (a term that Hamilton uses) for the Proto-Canaanite consonantal and syllabic texts is being published on this site, beginning with "Sinai sphinx speaks" (Sinai 345). In the light of the information I have provided here, it might be worth reconsidering.

Gordon Hamilton's labours have certainly yielded fruit (notably in the study of the letter B), and the approach should be extended further, not abandoned. The trouble is that his misidentifications have led to some shaky generalizations.

My dear epigraphical colleagues, we try to convince ourselves that we are practising objective science, but the subjective results we all present look like sophistry spiced with speciosity.

COLLESS, Brian E., "Recent Discoveries Illuminating the Origin of the Alphabet", Abr-Nahrain, 26 (1988), pp. 30-67. A preliminary attempt to construct a table of signs and values for the proto-alphabet, and to make sense of some of the inscriptions from Sinai and Canaan.
COLLESS, B.E., "The Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions of Sinai", Abr-Nahrain, 28 (1990), pp. 1-52. An interpretation of 44 inscriptions from the turquoise-mining region of Sinai.
COLLESS, B.E., "The Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions of Canaan", Abr-Nahrain, 29 (1991), pp. 18-66. An interpretation of 30 brief inscriptions from Late-Bronze-Age Palestine.
COLLESS, B.E., 1996, "The Egyptian and Mesopotamian Contributions to the Origins of the Alphabet", in Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Near East, ed. Guy Bunnens, Abr-Nahrain Supplement Series 5 (Louvain) 67-76.
COLLESS, B.E., 1992, "The Byblos Syllabary and the Proto-alphabet", Abr-Nahrain 30 (1992), 15-62.

And my other articles on the Canaanite syllabary ("Byblos pseudo-hieroglyphic script") in Abr-Nahrain (now Ancient Near Eastern Studies) from 1993 to 1998, culminating in:
COLLESS, Brian E., "The Canaanite Syllabary", Abr-Nahrain 35 (1998) 28-46.

All except 1988 are available at the Peeters website.

CROSS, F.M., Leaves from an Epigrapher's Notebook (2003). Collected articles

DARNELL, John et al, "Two early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi el-H.ôl", The Annual of the ASOR 59 (2005) 63-124.

GELB, I. J., A Study of Writing: The Foundations of Grammatology, 2nd en (Chicago 1963).

HAMILTON, Gordon J., The Origins of the West Semitic Alphabet in Egyptian Scripts (Washington 2006) XVI +433 pages.

POWELL, Barry B., Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization (2009)

SASS, B., The Genesis of the Alphabet (Wiesbaden 1988)

This is my chart showing the development
of the proto-alphabet.

Click on it to see the enlarged picture.

2007-10-07T19:42:00.000-07:00

ANCIENT SINAI IRRIGATION

SINAI INSCRIPTION 357

This inscription is on the wall inside the turquoise Mine L at Serabit el-Khadim on the Sinai Peninsula. A photograph is supplied together with my drawing, but other depictions of it are available on the internet (photograph; drawing). The letters are numbered on my sketch, for convenience in the discussion of the text. My drawing is not a perfectly accurate copy of what is there, but it shows what the letters are. The two instances of K (8 and 18) certainly represent upright hands with three or four fingers, but throughout this corpus of inscriptions K is often obscure. The T (3) is not discernible as a plain cross, leading to the suspicion that it could be K, but it is unlike the two examples of K (8, 18). The most mysterious letter in this text (17) is a triangle with two fins, in the horizontal line; but it cannot be a roughly executed fish, since there is a proficiently drawn fish (7) in the vertical column, and this scribe is an artist; identification of this character will be attempted when we reach that point in the text.

Readings of the message encoded by this sequence are many and varied. I myself have made a number of different translations, privately. Nevertheless, my starting point for my preferred interpretation is with signs 5 and 6: G (boomerang) and N (snake), forming the word gan, meaning 'garden', as in inscriptions 375 (defining the daily rations from the granary and the garden), and 353 (identifying the garden in front of Mine L, from which provisions could be taken).

In this study I will also draw on several shorter inscriptions to support my case (359, 383, 377, 386, 367).

The first six letters make this sequence: ' (ox) N (snake), T (cross), Sh (sun-serpent), G (boomerang), N (snake). As already stated, I propose to take GN as 'garden';. The combination 'NT (even though it could be the second person singular pronoun, 'anta) will be read as 'unutu, 'equipment' or 'vessels' (well attested in Akkadian, and also in Jewish Aramaic); it also appears at the start of inscription 349, which includes (line 3) a word `rk, 'apparatus', and this supports 'NT as 'equipment'. The Sh could be the possessive particle (as seen in Akkadian, Phoenician, and Hebrew), relating 'NT to GN hence: "The garden equipment". In the light of what we learn further down, the term 'vessels' would be appropriate.

Since I am taking an irrigation line of interpretation, I propose that the next combination, S (fish) and K (hand), is the imperative mood (SK) of the verb n-s-k, 'pour'. But the extreme ambiguity of the text can be illustrated by this possibility: 'NT ShGN SK, "You, Shagan, pour!".

Another way to divide the words, by adding the M (9), would produce the word NSKM, 'pourers', used for 'metalsmiths', as pourers of molten metal. We have already noticed that there was a melting furnace (KBShN MSh) as well as a garden near the entrance to this cavern, Mine L (S353). Accordingly, we could read it as saying:

'NT Sh GN (N)SKM:"Equipment of the garden of the metalsmiths".
I do not exclude this possibility, but my overall understanding of this text is that it gives instructions for watering the garden, and the imperative SK, "Pour!" suits this line of reasoning better. Note that we have already seen (S353) cases where a single letter functions for the final and initial sounds of two adjacent words (MHB`LT for MHB B`LT, 'beloved of Ba`alat', for example).

The M (9), the wavy water sign, could be the word for water, namely mu, or else it stands for the word mayim, 'water', and is thus a logogram (a sign standing for a whole word, not simply for a sound). This inscription has at least one logogram: the `ayin (21), an eye, will be understood as representing the word `ayin, meaning 'eye', but also 'spring'. Whichever way we look at it, the M represents 'water', and SK M could say: 'Pour water'. Another complication and seeming contradiction should be mentioned: the sequence ML (9, 10) occurring here ("water from") and below (16,17) will be understood there as the verb meaning "fill".

L'B (10-12) could be analysed as l, 'to' or 'for', and 'ab, 'the father'. Incidentally, the preposition l can also say 'from' as well as 'to'!

BMLK (15-18) could yield 'the house of the king', with B as a logogram for house (byt), and MLK the word for 'king' (malk).

Our attempts to make sense of the signs in this column demonstrate the ambiguity we face: even when the letters are legible and their identifications are known with certainty, the possible meanings are many. Of course, the main difficulty is that the inscribers never separate the words.

However, we do find a separated word here: DhT (13-14) 'this' (feminine singular). It has been added in small print to the right of the first B (12). It has been ignored and even rejected by scholars, but it is fairly visible on the photograph provided above. I think it applies to the word 'B, showing that it is not masculine 'father', nor 'fruit', nor 'ghost', but a word of feminine gender. The remaining possibility that I see is 'skin-bag' or 'water-bottle'; this object was made from a goat skin turned inside out. Because the word is not well attested, its gender is not certain, but I would guess that its womb-like nature, as a container of liquids (water and wine), would make it feminine. Unfortunately, this attractive argument receives no support from the fact that the Semitic word for 'womb' (r-hh-m) is masculine gender!

These skin bags could also be used as bellows, filled with air, and the smiths on this site would have employed them for this purpose as they worked at their furnaces. Remember, we have already encountered two words for 'furnace': KBShN (S353); and KR, in the expression BN KR, 'son of the furnace', applied to 'Asa on the inscribed sphinx (S345).

Another inscription can be brought into the discussion at this point.

Semitic inscription 359 belongs to the same mining area, but its precise provenance is not known. Its letters are clear: ' (ox) B (house) M (water). I suggest that it says 'water-bag': 'b 'skin bag', qualified by m 'water'. It could conceivably mark the spot where a water bag was placed, so everyone knew where it could be found; and it might even be indicating the very skin bag ('this bag') mentioned in the inscription in Mine L. Presumably bottles of water would be kept inside, away from the heat of the sun and the furnaces.

In the interpretation I am proposing, the text begins with the defining statement "The garden vessels". One of these vessels was a water-bag, apparently, and another was a jug, I will now demonstrate. Note that a piece of a large pot was found in Mine L.

Looking at letters 18 and 19 (separated by imperfections in the rock surface), I would make a case for the hand as K, of course, and the triangular sign as D, forming the common West Semitic word kad, meaning 'jug, pitcher'. Remember that the Greek D (Delta by name, coming from Semitic dalt, 'door') is a triangle. We may not be able to draw a direct line from this Sinai sign to Delta, but long ago someone suggested that if Delta was derived from a picture of a door, it must have been a tent-door. Be that as it may, the idea certainly made me think that we have a tent-flap depicted here. It has two projections, like 'fins', though it is probably not a fish; see letter 7; but if it is a graphic variant of a fish sign, and hence S, then the word would be KS, 'cup', or even 'bowl'; still, they could be the threads that attached it to the tent. Let us not forget that these men lived in tents (see S365, Sinai camp site).

So we have a water-bag and a jug as the garden vessels. And the inscription gives directions on their use, if the letters are divided up thus:

SK M L 'B DhT B ML KD M
"Pour (SK) water (M) from (L) this (DhT) bag ('B) in (B) filling (ML) the jug (KD) with water (M)"

This looks very simplistic, but the writer is emphasizing that a jug must be used for careful pouring when irrigating the vegetables in the garden, by drip-feeding, not spraying straight from the water-bag; water was precious.

For comparison, we might refer to the time of a great drought in ancient Israel (9th century BCE) when Ahab and Jezebel ruled the land (1 Kings 18 in the Bible). The prophet Elijah (Eliyahu, 'Yahweh is my God') summoned the prophets of Ba`al to Mount Carmel, for a rain-making contest. Ba`al, the weather-god, had failed to send rain; now Yahweh would prove his superiority by breaking the drought. At one point in the proceedings Eliyahu gives an order:

"Fill four pitchers with water"
ml'w (fill) 'rb` (four) kdym (jugs) mym (water).

Notice that there is no helping preposition 'with', as needed in English; it is simply "fill jugs water", as in our inscription, ML (fill) KD (jug) M (water).

By coincidence the letters in the word for 'four' also occur at the end of the line (25-28): '(ox) R (head) B (house) ` (eye). And it is possible that it means 'four jugfuls' of water are to be used. However, I will propose another understanding of the letters when we reach that point.

In my view, the words following the word 'water' (M, 20) name the sources of the water. The M could have a double function: 'water' and 'from'.

In this regard, notice the possibility that dm` 'm could say 'the tears of the mother'; and if the D could be used as the final consonant in kd (jug) and the initial in dm` (tears), then we have: "filling the jug with tears of the Mother (Goddess)". This could mean rainwater, or more suitably water from springs, since the divine Mother is identified with the earth, and father gods are in the sky ("Our Father who art in Heaven"). However, while dm` is the verb meaning 'weep', the noun 'tears' is feminine and has a -t ending, and there is no T in sight.

However, I propose that the same meaning can be obtained by understanding the `ayin as a logogram for 'eye' or 'spring' (the word can mean both, for obvious reasons). Hence M ` 'M could be saying: "water from the spring of the Mother".

I think we can identify and locate this spring. At some distance from these mines is a well known as Bir Nasb, which must have been the main water source for the expeditions. On the rock face above it are two inscriptions: one is the record of Asa's sickness (376); the other (377) consists of three proto-alphabetic signs and some other marks.

The letters are in a bunch: ' (ox) ` (eye) M (water). We have learned by now that these Sinai inscribers do not always put their letters in straight lines and in order, though S357 (the one we are studying) is very tidy in this respect. Examples we know are 345, 358, and 365; and a fine instance is found on the side of the statuette 346 (which we have not studied yet). There the letters R Ss B are above B N N, but everyone recognizes (though most erroneously read Q instead of Ss) that the sequence order is RBNSsBN, because that is how it appears on inscription 349, running along a straight line.

Similarly, since the letters we see above the Bir Nasb spring are in the order 'ayin `alep M on the horizontal line of inscription 357, and since they produce a very apt name for that well, we may accept the same order for 377. Hence, by one of the principles we have established for interpreting proto-alphabetic texts (the letters could function as logograms and polysyllabograms) the brief text 377 says: "Spring of the Mother (Goddess)". If the mark below the M (on the photograph) is the Egyptian hieroglyph B1, a seated woman, the determinative marker for female, then we have a strong case. (If the female figure has horns and sun-disk on her head, hieroglyph C9, then this indicates that the goddess is Hat-Hor, or her Semitic equivalent.)

There is another stone slab from the interior of Mine L. It is numbered 386, and it has one sign: `ayin.

Again we may read it as a logogram: "spring". It is possible that it marked the site of a spring inside the mine, but more probably it showed the spot where spring-water was stored.

The remaining letters of inscription 357 are recognized by everyone:
24R 25' 26R 27B 28` 29L
And though the final L is not certain (but see this drawing by I. Beit-Arieh), we seem to be in the presence of the god Ba`al. The combination 'r b`l could mean 'the light of Ba`al', but we are looking for irrigation from Ba`al, not illumination.

There are several possibilities. Borrowing the final M from 'm (mother) we have mr, 'a drop' (as in Isaiah 40:15, "a drop from a bucket"), which suggests drip-feeding of the plants, with the following 'four' ('rb`) indicating the strict rationing of the water! Then we could try r'r, 'outpouring' of Ba`al (if r'r can be connected with ryr, 'discharge', though the noun means 'spit'). A noun rb(b) is attested in Ugaritic, meaning drizzle or perhaps heavy dew, here possibly 'showers of Ba`al'. There is a root rwy, 'to water' (plants), with an Arabic noun riyy, 'watering, irrigation', and this would fit admirably here. The 'alep, taken on its own as a separate word, could be the conjunction 'or' ('u).

Putting the best choices together:
"watering (r) or (') showers (rb) of Ba`al".

Rain-water was stored on the site, apparently. There was a pond near the temple. A stone-enclosure south of Mine L had this large slab with a small inscribed stela on it (367).

The stone looks as if it has suffered water damage, but in the lower part we can see B (house) ` (eye) and L (crook), the god Ba`al. In the top section we seem to have G (boomerang, throw-stick, without blades, unlike the G (5) on inscription 357 in Mine L, see above) then B (square house). This combination, gb, can cover various Semitic words meaning cavity for collecting water, cistern, reservoir.

Between the two suggested words, GB and B`L, are two lines (not shown on my drawing, see the photograph). These could be the character Dh, 'this', and function as a qualifying conjunction: "Reservoir, the one of Ba`al".

However, the presumed B seems to have two eyes in it, suggesting that a human head is intended, hence R. Moreover, to the right of the eye is a possible B (see the photograph).

Accordingly, we could read:

GB Dh RB (B)`L "Reservoir of showers of Ba`al".

Thus the assumed RB (B)`L on inscription 357 (26-29) is also present here.

The horticultural interpretation of inscription 357 runs thus:

"Garden vessels ('nt sh gn): pour (sk) water (M) from (l) this (dh-t) bag ('b) in (b) filling (ml) the jug (kd) with water of the spring of the Mother (m `ayin 'm), drops (mr) [or: irrigation water (m r)], or (') showers of Ba`al (rb[b]`l)."

As they appear in this solution, the instructions are not clear; but the gist is that the garden vessels were a water-bag and a jug; and the sources of water were the distant spring of the Mother Goddess (Bir Nasb) and the nearby reservoir of Ba`al where rain-water was stored.

A final word in defence of my interpretations, presented here again in a new form (see Colless 1990). They have been ridiculed (the term 'bizarre' has been used in French and English!). What I have done here and in the other essays in this series is to bring together the things that belong together, so that they can aid our understanding of the pieces in their full context. Examples of what others have done with this inscription (357), examining it in relative isolation (so to speak), can be found in the article of Emile Puech (2002).

Of course, our concomitant aim is to recognize all the letters of the proto-alphabet as we go, and to establish the principles by which they were employed (logographic usage, for example).

In this text, and the inscriptions connected with it, we received additional confirmation that the boomerang is G (not P, 'corner'), and that it can be a right angle as well as an obtuse angle. The hand is K, whether it has four fingers or three (not Ss). The fish is not D but S (which has an 'allograph', a spinal column, in some places, but not in the Sinai inscriptions); the door is D, and here we saw a graphic variant (rather than an alternative, an 'allograph'), in a tent-door (19), not the usual house-door (inscriptions 376, 365B, and 367 above); it is not the sign for Sh, as is commonly assumed. The sign that slightly resembles a bow (here 4) is actually a stylized version of the sun with its serpent (sometimes with the sun-disc present, but usually absent), and it is not Th but Sh (shimsh, 'sun'); Th is a breast-sign (thad, 'breast', inscription 375, twice).

Brian E. Colless, The proto-alphabetic inscriptions of Sinai, Abr-Nahrain/Ancient Near Eastern Studies 28 (1990) 1-52
Gordon J. Hamilton, The Origins of the West Semitic Alphabet in Egyptian Scripts (2006)
Emile Puech, Notes sur quatres inscriptions protosinaïtiques, Revue Biblique 109 (2002) 5-39
Benjamin Sass, The Genesis of the Alphabet (1988)

2007-10-06T16:20:00.001-07:00

ANCIENT SINAI HORTICULTURE

SINAI INSCRIPTION 353

The inscription depicted here looks illegible, at first sight, but with the aid of my drawing we should be able to make a lot of sense out of it. Originally it was inscribed on the rock face near the entrance to Mine L, but a block of the stone broke away and it fell to the ground, together with other such stelas.

First let us look for some familiar sequences. On the bottom half of the line that I have numbered as (1) we can discern the phrase "beloved of Ba`alat" (MHB`LT): M (water) H (jubilation) B (house) `ayin (eye) L (crook) T (cross). This is a simplified version of the expression, which in its proper form has two more letters: M'HB B`LT (as on the inscribed sphinx). The weak glottal stop (`aleph) has been swallowed, so to speak, and the double B has been reduced to one single B.

On the bottom half of the middle column (2) we can recognize the word for 'provisions' or 'rations', which we saw on inscription 375: 'RKhT (ox-head, human head, hank, cross).

At the top section of the same column (2) we can find the boomerang and snake combination that makes the word GN, meaning 'garden'; and there is another GN in the adjoining line (3).

At the top of column 3 (and also line 1) is an example of the two horizontal lines, representing Dh, the demonstrative pronoun, 'this'. So we have a sentence starting "This (is) a/the garden". Note that in the Bronze Age there was no definite article in Semitic languages (no equivalent of al in Arabic and ha in Hebrew).

My reading of the text gives us:
Dh GN ShMSh
"This is the Shamash garden (or the garden of Shamash)".
Shamash is the Semitic sun-god, and the garden would be under his protection and nurture.

The next letter I detect is D, a door. Many people have studied this text, and no one else has noticed it, so it has to be suspect. But if we allow its presence, then I would argue that we have the word ShD, meaning 'field' (known from Ugaritic, Phoenician, and Hebrew). To construct this word I have to assume that the final Sh of ShMSh doubles as the initial Sh of ShD; but we have already seen this phenomenon in the first column, in the expression MHB`LT, which should have been MHB B`LT.

The following two letters are B (house) and T (cross), which could be read as the word for 'house', but also 'daughter'. Then I find a faint but existent Sh (very flat, like the example on the Thebes proto-alphabetic ostrakon, bottom right), preceding a clear L.

Now we encounter a new letter. At first glance it looks like another B, a simple square; but it has a curved lower appendage. It is the same character as the one in the top left corner of the Thebes proto-alphabetic ostrakon, and it is obviously the original Hh, representing a dwelling with a courtyard (from hhassir, or h.as.ir, 'court'). Sometimes the house section of the character is divided into two rooms (inscriptions 361 and 380), but not here.

It came as a surprise to me that we are here confronted by an idiom known in Hebrew: ShD BT ShLHh, 'a field requiring irrigation', literally 'a field a house of a water-channel'. I presume the 'house' or 'home' is there because of its counterpart: ShD BT B`L, 'a rain-watered field', literally 'a field (that is) a home of Ba`al'. In the Hebrew usage the Ba`al ('Lord') would have been understood as the Lord Yahweh, not as the Semitic weather-god named Hadad, regularly known by the title Ba`al.

Actually, if my proposed D is not really there, the sentence could possibly function without the word for 'field': "This is the garden of Shamash, an irrigated place (a home of a water-channel)".

The remaining letters of this column, running horizontally to the left, are: L K N Sh. The L could be the preposition meaning 'to' or 'for', and the root K-N-Sh means 'gather' or 'collect' (attested in Phoenician and Aramaic, and as kns in Hebrew, in the word kneset, 'parliament').
So the phrase here would say: 'for gathering'.

The next column (2) clarifies the statement in this line (1). The root K-N-Sh can be be found there also, without much difficulty. There is a letter Dh (=) between the K and the N of GN. It is possible to find a B above the boomerang of GN. Others see M, which could say 'from'.

Putting it all together, we have what I think is a very credible reading:
(3) This (Dh) [is] the garden (GN) of Shamash (ShMSh), an irrigated field (ShD BT ShLHh). (2) In (B) this (Dh) garden (GN) gather (KNSh) provisions ('RKhT).

Remember that the document defining the daily rations ('RKhT) for the workers (inscription 375) stipulated three handfuls of grain, plus garden pickings (MS`T GN). This patch of ground, near Mine L, was the garden where the workers grew their vegetables.

The remaining column (1) speaks of the equipment they used for melting and moulding metal.

The sequence of signs is: Dh K B Sh N M Sh M H B ` L T
"This (Dh) is the melt-furnace (KBShN MSh) beloved of Ba`alat (MHB`LT)"

Details of this statement will be considered in our study of inscription 351.

The new letter in this inscription was Hh (hhassir, house with courtyard); its related sound Kh (hank), which it replaced in Hebrew, is also in evidence here. In each line there is a K, all slightly different, but the example in the bottom left corner (as revealed in the photo, not as in my inexact drawing) shows how this character could turn into Greco-Roman K. There has been further confirmation of the boomerang (not just as a stick figure, but with its blade shown, as found twice here) as G, in the word gan ('garden'), in a context that is clearly horticultural.

SINAI INSCRIPTION 355

This piece of sandstone was also found near the entrance to Mine L, but is now lost. It may be the top left corner of Sinai 350.

More details on these documents (Sinai 353 and 356) can be found in my published article: Brian E. Colless, The proto-alphabetic inscriptions of Sinai, Abr-Nahrain 28 (1990) 1-52, particularly 31-34.

2007-09-20T17:03:00.000-07:00

SINAI CAMP SITE

SINAI INSCRIPTION 365

Here is another inscription on a stone from the region of the ancient Egyptian turquoise mines on the Sinai Peninsula, more particularly from the camp site of the mining expeditions.

We can see that the writing is protoalphabetic, and we assume that the language will be (as in the four 'Asa inscriptions we have studied) Bronze-Age Canaanite, the West Semitic tongue that became Phoenician and Hebrew in the Iron Age. It is not possible to date the inscription precisely, but we can say that is from the 16th century BCE (Late Bronze Age) or earlier (Middle Bronze Age).

There is writing on each side. Starting from 365a, which has the most letters on it, we recognize a familiar name in the column that I have numbered as 3: "Ba`alat". Below a cross (T) is a square representing a house and thus B (bayt, Beth, Beta); then an eye (`ayin), an L, and a T. This is the goddess Ba`alat, the female counterpart of the god Ba`al.

On the inscribed sphinx we found her preceded by the word M'HB, "beloved", and this word can be found at the bottom of the stone. The wavy water sign for M and the ox-head for 'Aleph are at the end of column 1; the H is to the right of this, a person with arms upraised; the expected B is not easy to find on the photograph, but my drawing suggests a rectangle with its top side running obliquely.

With regard to the remaining letters, in line 1 there is an inverted version of another distorted B. Below it is a long curvy line, which is presumably a snake and therefore N; on the photograph it seems to have horns or a head.

Above the B is another curvy sign, which I understand as Sh (from shimsh, "sun"), representing the uraeus serpent that embraces the sun in Egyptian iconography (it is also hieroglyph N6). I suggest that the sun-disc has here dropped out of the character; there are cases in West Semitic inscriptions where the disc is still there, but not in the Sinai examples. This sign occurs frequently, but apparently not in the four 'Asa texts. The opinion of W.F. Albright, which is widely accepted, is that it represents a bow without its string, and it certainly resembles hieroglyph J32; he assigned the hypothetical value Th to it, on the basis of a hypothetical word *thann, supposedly meaning "composite bow". In my view, taking all the available evidence into account, the sign for Th is a human female breast, going with the word thad (which became shad in Hebrew), meaning "breast". The Th-sign became the letter Sh in the Hebrew and Phoenician alphabet; its meaning was forgotten, and it became known as Shin ("tooth").

The two signs are similar:
Th is \/\/ or /\/\ (breast); also like the figure 3
Sh is (/\) or (/O\) (sun with snake)

We should call on our proto-alphabetic ostrakon from Thebes for assistance in distinguishing Th and Sh.

Concentrating on the bottom right area, the candidates for Sh and Th are above the M (wavy line) and to the right of the M, under the Kh (Y-shaped, hank of thread). Clarity is not freely available in this puzzle, but I will choose the one on the left as Th (breast), and the one on the right as Sh (very faint and small).

Returning to the inscription (365a), we see in line 1 a sequence of letters Sh B N. One possibility for this is "captives", and if this is correct it tells us something about the status of the workers: they are probably prisoners of war engaged in forced labour.

Above the Sh is what looks like a remnant of another Sh, assuming that part of the stone has worn away or been broken off at the top. This could function as sh, "of", thus giving us "of the prisoners".

We might expect to find the thing belonging to the prisoners in the middle line of the text (2), which is rather murky. In my view, the central character (shaped like a heart or a foot) is composed of three signs: M-Sh-K, followed by N-T. The M, Sh, and N are narrower versions of their counterparts in line 1. The K is a stylized hand with three fingers; compare the example on the ostrakon (bottom left, above the eye, and beside the L).

This combination of sounds produces the recognizable word m-sh-k-n-t, from the root sh-k-n, meaning "settle, dwell", and so the noun means "dwelling-place". Here it has the feminine form ending -t, as in Ugaritic; in the Bible it is mishkan, and it refers to the "tabernacle", the sacred tent of the God of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. Now, I am not suggesting that this was the place where the Israelites camped on their way to the promised land of Cana`an; but this was definitely an ancient camp site, and this stone marks out a section of it as being the place where prisoners had their tents. The word m-sh-k-n-t could be singular or plural ("abode" or "tents"), and in either case we have the adjective (or passive participle) m-'-h-b-t agreeing with it.

In the four 'Asa inscriptions we have seen how the text can meander over the surface of the stone. Here the statement starts in the middle column (2), and moves to the column on the right (3), continues round under column 2, then leaps to the top of column 3, and runs down.

Accordingly, we have this plausible reading:

m-sh-k-n-t sh sh-b-n m-'-h-b-t b-`-l-t
"Abode/tents of the prisoners, (which is/are) beloved of Ba`alat"

Turning the stone over, we can see another inscription (365a) that has not stayed in line.

In the top half we can faintly detect Dh ( = ) and T (+), as shown on my drawing. Then we see the head of an ox, with its ear intact (compare the 'aleph on 365a), but its horns have been lost in the damage the stone has suffered at this point. Below it is a human head with a narrow neck, hence R.

Underneath the head is a Waw, a hook. The corresponding signs, RW, appear on the lower left side of the Thebes ostrakon (see above), but neither has exactly the same shape as the ones we see here; this tells us that in the proto-alphabetic stage the letters did not necessarily have fixed forms. A head represents R, and a hook W, and a door D. There is a door to the left of the head; compare the inverted version on the ostrakon, at the top, between the fish (S) and the Bayt.

To the left of the D is a Y, a forearm with a hand, and its thumb and finger are pointing downwards; compare the Y on the ostrakon at the bottom in the left corner. Obviously the common attempt to combine the DY into Kh is misguided.

To the right of the Waw is a clear T (+).

The order in which I have presented the characters produces an intelligible reading:

dh-t '-r-w-d-y-t "which (is) Arwadite"

The dh-t is "this" or "which", and "Arwadite" is the adjective from Arwad, the ancient Phoenician city situated on an island north of Gubla (Byblos, now Jibeil). The gentilic adjective refers to the "abode" on 365a, but it also indicates the origin of the prisoners who slept in the tent(s) at this spot in the camp.

More details on this document (Sinai 365) can be found in my published article: Brian E. Colless, The proto-alphabetic inscriptions of Sinai, Abr-Nahrain 28 (1990) 1-52, particularly 18-19.

For the purpose of sign-identification, this inscription has highlighted the sun-character, Shimsh. We now need to examine a text exhibiting the breast-sign, Thad, and Sinai 375 will serve admirably, and also show us the rations allotted to the workers at the turquoise mines.

See also the discussion on Sh and Th in the article on Sinai 376.

Letters still not encountered in the Sinai inscriptions are: G, Tt, Hh, and Z.

On the Thebes ostrakon (see above) the boomerang G is on the left side, between Dh and R.

Tt (Tet) is the long letter below the fish and between L and Q, having this shape: O--+.

Hh is a house with a courtyard, in the top left corner.

Z should be two triangles, but it is not on this ostrakon (though it can be seen on two other tablets from Thebes).

2007-08-07T16:31:00.000-07:00

SINAI FOOD RATIONS

SINAI INSCRIPTIONS 368 AND 375

Here are two more proto-alphabetic inscriptions from the ancient turquoise mines of Sinai. Each has the sequence 'S (ox-head, fish), which we recognized as the personal name 'Asa in inscriptions 345 (sphinx), 376 (rock face), 358 (mine interior wall), 363 (gravestone). However, in Sinai 368 (also numbered 21, above) we find one complete word 'SM (ox, fish, water), which would be West Semitic 'asam, meaning 'store' or 'granary'. This small stela was discovered in a stone enclosure near Mine L, and this would have been the place where grain was stored.

The remaining occurrence of 'S is in column 2 0f Sinai 375 (also numbered 39, above), and it forms a word 'ST, which seems to be related to East Semitic (Babylonian) ishittu, 'store'. This broken document was found in Mine M.

Starting from the clue that the text contains a reference to a grain store, my interpretation is that it defines the daily rations for the workers.

In line 1 the word 'RKhT appears (ox-head, human head, hank of thread, cross). It could mean 'cows' (we know that there were goats in that dry place, from the presence of caprine bones, but not bovine), but more likely 'rations', or 'provisions'. The corresponding Hebrew word is used in 2 Kings 25:30 for the daily allowance of food that a captive king of Judah received at the court of the king of Babylonia.

Column 2 has the word 'ST ('granary') preceded by MG (water, boomerang). This mg could be equivalent to Hebrew miggo (min-go, 'from the inside of') meaning 'out of'. So we read:
(1) Rations, (2) from the granary ....

In column 3 I discern this sequence of signs:
Th L Th T Ss B T M
The th-l-th-t consists of two breast-signs, separated by an L and followed by a T (only the vertical stroke of the cross is clear). As far as I can see, these are the only cases of Th (from thad, 'breast') in the whole collection of Sinai proto-alphabetic inscriptions. The word that the four characters make is the numeral 'three', and the following word is SsBTM, meaning 'handfuls'. This term is used in the Bible story of Ruth (2:16) with reference to gleaning ears of grain in fields. We can see a tied bag for Ss, though my drawing may be misrepresenting what is there: on the photograph the bag is apparently an oval with its cord hanging down on the left side.

On the copy of the proto-alphabet from Thebes the Ss (below the 'aleph and above the L) has the tie protruding upwards on the right.

The results we are achieving look plausible:
(1) Rations: (2) out of the granary (3) three handfuls

The final column has the following sequence of letters:
M (water) S (fish) `(eye) T (cross) G (boomerang) N (snake)

It is my contention that GN is simply the Semitic word gan, meaning 'garden' (as used in Genesis for the garden of Eden); it occurs in four of the Sinai inscriptions, and although a garden seems somewhat improbable in this rather barren setting, I can invoke my own observation of what is feasible in this region. Standing on the traditional Mount Sinai I looked down into the grounds of the adjacent monastery and saw a rich garden.

The workers had a vegetable garden on the site, and I find a reference to the vegetables in the sequence MS`T; it could be from the root NS`, 'to pluck' or pull out'. The -t would be the feminine ending (singular or plural) on the noun, and I suggest the meaning is 'garden pickings'. The initial M could be a part of the word; or the same m(in), 'from', as in mg, 'out of', in line 2; or ma, 'and'.

The final reading emerges thus:
(1) Rations: (2) out of the granary (3) three handfuls, (4) and garden pickings.

In this instalment we encountered the letter Th (breast) in the word for 'three', and had further confirmation of the tied bag as Ss, the hank as Kh, the fish as S (twice), and the boomerang as G (twice), together with the well-established eye as `ayin, the ox-head as 'aleph, the human head as R, the cross as T, the house as B, the water-waves as M.

More details on these documents (Sinai 368 and 375) can be found in my published article: Brian E. Colless, The proto-alphabetic inscriptions of Sinai, Abr-Nahrain 28 (1990) 1-52, particularly 28 and 42-43.
The reference for the first publication of Sinai 375 is:
Romain F. Butin, The New Protosinaitic Inscriptions, in Richard F. S. Starr and Romain F. Butin, Excavations and Protosinaitic Inscriptions at Serabit el Khadem, Studies and Documents 6 (London 1936) 31-42. The photograph (inverted!) is Figure 21 on Plate 10.

2007-08-04T18:55:00.000-07:00

THE GRAVE OF ASA

SINAI INSCRIPTION 363

As we have been attempting to decipher the Sinai protoalphabetic inscriptions, we have stumbled on a story of one of the workers on the turquoise-mining site of the Pharaohs. His name is 'Asa, and we have seen his offering to the goddess Hat-Hor (Semitic Ba`alat) in the form of a sphinx statuette. There is a record of his sickness, in writing on the rock near the spring that supplied water for the expeditions (perhaps he was seeking healing there, as it is labeled "the spring of the Mother (goddess)"). An apparent obituary for him is engraved on the interior wall of Mine M: "'Asa has done his work".

And here before us is an inscribed stone slab (Sinai 363) which was found in a mound, 50 metres south of Mine L (which adjoins Mine M). Its inscription includes the sequence ' S, which could be referring to this literate labourer whose trail we have been following. My interpretation of the evidence views this tumulus as 'Asa's burial place (situated at a respectful distance from the work area), and the plaque as his gravestone. The ' S combination is found on the left side, with the ox-head below the fish, so we would here have to read upwards, whereas all the other lines are read downwards. However, we have seen the kind of twists and turns these inscriptions can take, in the text in Mine M (the obituary), and there are numerous other examples in the collection. I have numbered the columns from the right (as is customary) but I understand the inscription as starting in the top-left corner. 'Asa will be at the end of column 3, running upwards to meet the end of line 1 (in which I find 5 letters).

This is my reading of the letters:

(4) K N K N Dh (3) N Kh T ' S (2) T N Q N T (1) ' L

The first letter is a large K, and the third letter is a small K, the second and fourth signs are snakes, both saying N. The big K has a stem, but it is not H (person jubilating with arms raised); it matches the K on the Theban protoalphabet (which is in the bottom left corner, with its stem in the eye) and is obviously the forerunner of Greek Kappa and Roman K. The right-hand stroke of the smaller K has merged with the head of the snake next to it.

Why would the engraver write such a small K after producing a large one? Perhaps for the same reason as he cut a tiny Q in line 2 (when Q is the tallest sign on the Theban protoalphabet), and used cobras for N in lines 3 and 4 but horned vipers in line 2. No special reason.

The word KNKN is known in Ugaritic literature in the word KNKNY (5.5.13). In the myth of Ba`al and `Anat (who is likely to be the Ba`alat we meet in the Sinai inscriptions), Ba`al is instructed by the sun-goddess Shapsh to go down into the underworld for a time; to enter it he must lift the rock or mountain of KNKNY. This has been taken as the name of a mountain, but the Y could be the suffix meaning "my". A KNKN could thus be a hole in the ground (or a tunnel) giving access to the netherworld, and this would be the place where the sun set every night, and passed through the realm of the dead. The same word could also be present in a damaged text (19.147), referring to a human burial place, for Aqhat. In the situation before us the KNKN is associated with a tumulus, a 'burial mound', equivalent to the sun-goddess's mountain over her KNKN. I propose that KNKN be translated here as "grave", that is, a place where a person's body is buried, usually with an inscribed tombstone marking it and identifying the person by name, and also bearing a pious statement, such as "Rest in peace", an elegy, and an invocation to God . Well, that is certainly what we will find on 'Asa's gravestone.

The two horizontal strokes beneath KNKN signify Dh, probably representing dhu, "this". Moving to the next line, we see another N, a snake (though there is a faint line to its right which has led many observers to imagine it is an ox-head). Below it is a thread twisted into a hank or a wick, Kh. This combination, NKh, is a verbal root signifying "rest (be in repose)", which invites a connection with the funereal "Rest in peace". The T below it makes a noun, NKhT, presumably meaning "rest" or "resting-place".

Accordingly, I offer this translation:

"This (Dh) grave (KNKN) is the resting-place (NKhT) of 'Asa".

The two letters at the far right are 'Aleph and L, producing "Il" or "El", that is, "God".

The previous column runs T N Q N T. The Q is tiny, but it is clearly a stick with a cord wound around it (though my drawing may be going too far by showing the end of the string as well as the top of the stick, as on the sphinx statuette and on the Theban ostrakon, but both forms are attested). Our expectation of a religious utterance are met, and yet not quite fulfilled: TN means "give" (imperative mood); QNT means a funeral lament, as delivered by David for King Saul (2 Samuel 1:17-27, "Tell it not in Gath", "How are the mighty fallen").

So then, this gravestone on a burial mound can be interpreted thus:

"This grave is the resting-place of 'Asa. Give a lament, O God".

More details on this document (Sinai 363) can be found in my published article: Brian E. Colless, The proto-alphabetic inscriptions of Sinai, Abr-Nahrain 28 (1990) 1-52, particularly 24-25.

No new letters have appeared in this text, but there is another example of the rare letter Q (though 3 of the 4 'Asa inscriptions include Q!). And we had more practice in recognizing the letter K, sometimes as a hand with four fingers (as on the sickness inscription), or else a form with three "fingers" (as here, and in the obituary inscription, and in the sphinx inscription, and in the Theban protoalphabet).

Missing letters are: Hh, Z, Sh, Th, Gh, Tt (emphatic T), and Zz. Other Sinai inscriptions will need to be examined to try and identify these.