LAKISH INSCRIPTIONS GALORE

Lakish inscriptions: syllabic and consonantal

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

West Semitic Syllabic and Consonantal Scripts

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

https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2021/12/lakish-inscriptions.html

 
http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2021/12/lakish-scripts.html

https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2021/09/khirbet-ar-rai-inscription-lyrbl.html

https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2022/11/lakish-lice-comb.html

https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2019/12/lakish-jar-inscription-new.html

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

Its somewhat familiar formula is:
E = [2M + 2C]2
E = 2M + 2C squared

E is Early Alphabet, M = Monosyllabary, C = Consonantary, and the four components can be neatly fitted into a square box.
The origin of the alphabet was fourfold (Quadruple and Quadratic).
A brief and simplified explanation of the stages of the development will be attempted here, but there are concepts that will be quite unfamiliar to anyone who knows only how the Alphabet is used to write the English language.

Imagine a square, bisected by a diagonal line (running SW -> NE), producing two right-angle triangles with a shared hypotenuse (base line).

Click on the image to enlarge it.

[M1]   PROTO-SYLLABARY
On the top line of the figure.
This is a (mono)syllabic script associated with Byblos in Phoenicia (Lebanon); its characters are mostly borrowed Egyptian hieroglyphs; by the principle of "acrophony", only the first syllable of the West Semitic word that the sign represents is pronounced.
For example: a picture of a door, D, says daltu, so the door-sign represents DA; but a complication is that it can also say daltu, acting not simply as a syllabogram (syllable-letter) but also as a logogram (word-letter).
https://www.academia.edu/50903729/West_Semitic_Proto_Syllabary


[C1]   PROTO-CONSONANTARY
On the line on the East side of the square
This is a consonantal script devised in Egypt, apparently; it is the prototype of the alphabet; its characters are mostly borrowed Egyptian hieroglyphs, and taken from its predecessor, the Proto-syllabary; for the most part, it simply accepted the -a syllable-signs to represent consonants without vowels. The acrophonic principle operates here again, but only the first consonant of the pictured word is sounded.
Examples: the well-known group 'Alpu (ox) BAytu (house) GAmlu (boomerang)  DAltu (door), now become: ' (glotal stop) B G D; but a scribe may choose to employ any of the signs as a logogram, representing the whole word, not merely its initial consonant.
https://www.academia.edu/12894458/The_origin_of_the_alphabet
http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2007/10/gordon-hamiltons-early-alphabet-thesis.html

[C2]   NEO-CONSONANTARY
On the baseline on the South side of the square
This is a consonantal script and simply a shortened version of the Proto-consonantary
Example: the Proto-syllabary (M1) did not distinguish the consonants Sh and Th (sh as in shin, th as in thin); for SHA it had a human breast (\/\/) from shad/thad "breast"; for SHI it had shimsh "sun", represented by a circle (o) or by a sun-disc with serpents ( \o/); the Proto-consonantary (C1) employed SHA for Th, and SHI for Sh (a case of an -i syllabogram representing a consonant); the sign that survived was \/\/, which became Greek Sigma, and the first four letters took the names Alpha Beta Gamma Delta. The letters could still function as logograms at this stage.
http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2015/11/h-l-h-m-order-of-alphabet-letters.html

[M2]   NEO-SYLLABARY
On the West side of the figure
This is a syllabic script

https://sites.google.com/view/collesseum/abgadary
https://sites.google.com/view/collesseum/qeiyafa-ostracon-2

https://www.academia.edu/42283185/The_Lost_Link_The_Alphabet_in_the_Hands_of_the_Early_Israelites

[CC]   CUNEO-CONSONANTARY

https://sites.google.com/view/collesseum/cuneiformalphabet

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

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

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

Lakish was apparently unoccupied in the time of the Judges in Israel, when the Neo-syllabary flourished, but its lice-comb inscription is clearly neo-syllabic, and as this city was a centre of literacy, the Neo-syllabary may have been invented there; and this is possibly our earliest example of that type of writing.
https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2022/11/lakish-lice-comb.html

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

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

Alternative presentations, which take no account of the Proto-syllabary in the formation of the Proto-consonantary:
Patterns of evidence on early alphabet: Rohl, Petrovich, Rollston, Goldwasser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEa871flO8Q
Douglas Petrovich gives a lecture about his book on the Proto-consonantal script (the Proto-alphabaet);
he shows the details of his system of signs and values; his chart is obviously based on the Colless table, and he acknowledges that Brian Colless, a scholar of West Semitic  scripts in New Zealand, helped him when he began his journey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG8xUfokfsY