Petrovich Files

 

The Petrovich Files are a collection of exchanges between Brian Colless and Douglas Petrovich relating to their differing interpretations of ancient inscriptions from the Bronze Age, particularly those published in two books by Petrovich:
The World's Oldst Alphabet (2016)
Origins of the Hebrews (2021)
The purpose of this dossier is to show that I have informed Petrovich of my discoveries and theories, in the presence of many witnesses, who responded to my postings, in discussion groups on the website ACADEMIA, most recently here:
https://www.academia.edu/community/LG64g3?c=gA6N4L

Shalom, Doug.
 I have been waiting patiently for the culmination of this project; at an earlier stage I told you that I was happy (just short of ecstatic) with the way it was going; and here it is in a book, but I will have to pay money out of my old-age pension to know what is inside it. Still, the copious headings are much appreciated. All I can say is that there are so many books coming out on this subject that the choices are bewildering; but by now somebody must have come up with the right answer, and so, after all the effort you have put into the task, your solution could be the genuine article (actually a monograph, not an article). 
   One book on the subject (published in Vermont) recently came my way from my local bookseller (in Palmerston North, NZ) for NZ$18; it has lots of interesting information from archaeology, but it supports the 13th-century Exodus, rather than the 15th C. Allow me to set that aside for another day in the nine that are left for comment. If we set up one of these chat-rooms, the participants will want to talk about other matters; but you have opened the way for this by not giving us a selection of pertinent details that could be discussed, and also announcing your exegesis blog (white on black is scary to my eyes, though) with your Nimrod = Sargon proposal (which I also campaign for, and I would like to compare notes with you in this forum, or bazaar); and there is something else here on your Academia page that I have been impatiently waiting for, namely your essay on dating Khirbet Qeiyafa. This really got me excited last week as I redd (sic! "read" would be confusing) it on my screen, and next day I deemed it worthy to be printed out on precious paper, so that I could read, mark (in yellow and red), and assimilate its information and insights, which largely correspond to my own thoughts (but you have made me change my mind on one thing) in my work in progress on the same subject. You have published this in JSEOT. It is good to read an Evangelical composition like this, which takes Scriptural evidence as valid. In my long-held opinion, the accusation that the things we are liable to read in the Bible are not necessarily so, is a non-viable libel. (Sorry, George and Ira Gershwin)     
   One of the oldest of my publications on my Academia page is from The Evangelical Quarterly (1968, on the legacy of the Syriac churches) published by F. F. Bruce. These days my interpretation of the fundamentalist mantras "infallibility" and "inerrancy" are rather liberal; see my study of Darius the Mede = Cyrus the Persian in Daniel (JSOT 1992), based on an idea first put forth by a British Evangelical scholar. 
   I am keenly waiting to see what you will say about the seemingly "errant" (or non-inerrant) statement about Saul's reign in 1 Samuel 13:1, and what epigraphical evidence you will adduce. How can we turn Saul's allotted two years into Saul-Paul's forty years (Luke-Acts 13:21)? Does this allow us to understand the recurrent 40 for the reigns of the early kings as round(ed) numbers, and similarly in numbers relating to the Exodus that have 40 as a factor (= 1 generation? or period?) ? Solomon's 480 in his 4th year (also the Egyptian Avaris stele 400), and the 430 sojourn (Ex 12:40, this would need lateral thinking of a Daniel, invoking a 70 at the end!), exactly 40 years of wandering, exactly 120 for the age of Moses (rather than 3 stages of life, 3 x 40). I think you have already dealt with that point here, but I would like to know how you solve the puzzle of Saul's faulty statistics. Could they have been confused with Ishbaal's (40 years at accession, perhaps a conventional number signifying "mature adult", and likewise a 2 years reign, 2 S 2:10)? Shelama. Brian

4.12.2021
The commandment in this covenant-box before me is "Thou shalt give thy thoughts", freely (gratis) and liberally (in a conservative way). Well, if you insist, All-High Algorithm, I will record on this tablet some considerations on the KTWBYM that Doug has released for our inspection, on Nimrod, Double-gated Qeiyafa, and Israel in Egypt. With these three examples I want to explore what I call "the academic fallacy": that a question can only have one answer, that a problem can only have one solution. My mother tried to instill in me the principle that there is only one right way of doing a thing, but other mentors spoke of more than one way of doing an unspeakable thing to a cat. Though I was a low achiever in mathematics (I have never succumbed or resorted to calculus) I could handle (not to say manipulate) quadratic equations and get two answers out of them; and there are even higher forms of equations yielding more than two. It is not always a matter of "either ... or" (the prevailing mode in academic discourse) but it is often a case of "both ... and". My deliberations on this "two-faced folly" (or one-eyed delusion) will be set forth serially.

I am falling behind in my presentation of examples of the "either-or fallacy" (an idea which Doug has now mentioned in his own contributions). 

We now visit the ruins (Khirbet) of Qeiyafa, on the Sha`arayim road (1 Samuel 17:52, cp. Sha`arayim in Joshua 15:36), with reference to Douglas Petrovich's very good article on its connection with the United Monarchy, and the archaeological evidence that identifies King Saul rather tan King David as the builder of this fort. The importance of this place is its position in the Elah Valley, where David slew Goliath. The meaning of the name Qeiyafa is not clear, but one suggestion is that it is connected with KYP' (Aramaic) "stone, rock" , as in the name Kepha(s), Petros, Peter ('rock"); Qeiyafa is built on a high rock, and another toponym suggested for it is Gob, which has a hint of height in it (Hbr GBH "lofty", and GB` "hill", the name of King Saul's town); Gob is known only as a place where David and his men fought Philistian giants, including a Goliath (2 Sam 21:18-22).

The name Sha`arayim ("Two Gates") could only apply to Qeiyafa when its two gates were functioning, and this is recognized to be a very short period between its creation and its destruction (which would probably be at the time of the disastrous Battle of Gilboa, when the Philistian hordes wreaked havoc in Israel). The name applied to the site earlier (or later) could well have been Gob; so this is a case of "both-and". But Petrovich has noted that the list of towns "in the lowland" including Sha`arayim (Joshua 15:33-36) gives a total of 14, but there are 15 names. One explanation could be that Sha`arayim was added later (in the time of Samuel, perhaps, or after the census of King David); in this case its older name could still be there; it is preceded by Socoh and Azekah, which are both identified archaeologically, and they appear in the Elah Valley narrative (1 Sam 17:1), with the Philistians camped between them, and thus opposite Qeiyafa. The toponyms listed after Sha`arayim are Adithayim, Gederah, Gederothayim. Of these, Adithayim might be an alternative name for Sha`arayim.

A complication unknown to me until I saw Petrovich's footnote 44 (where C. C. McKinny's dissertation is cited) is that Sha`arayim could be identified as nearby Tell esh-Shari`ah. Garfinkel should have looked into this site, too! The place that I know by this Arabic name is much further south, and has been identified (Garsiel and Garsiel) as David's Ziklag (S.iqlag); we all know these days what shari`ah means, and David laid down a law about booty there (1 Sam 30:24-25); David is a h.alif in Islamic tradition, hence the name of the nearby Tell H.alif. Garfinkel wants Tell er-Ra`i (the name refers to shepherds) to be Ziklag, but it is too close to Gath, critics say. Never mind, its importance is the discovery there of three potsherds bearing the name Yerubba`al, alias Gid`on, a famous Judge of Israel. If you would like to see how the three pieces fit together, to produce la-ya-ru-bba-`a-la gi-di-`u-n (with the ba syllabogram containing a doubling dot, a sort of Daghesh Forte, a subject that Douglas and I have looked at together):

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

This northern Tell esh-Shari`ah is troublesome. It is not on any of the maps I have (notably Rainey's Sacred Bridge, but it is listed in Student Map Manual as 752 Khirbet esh-Shari`ah, tentatively identified as Shaaraim). Petrovich has it "in close proximity" to Khirbet Qeiyafa, after having said that no other option was available in proximity. Perhaps it could be accepted as a village associated with Sha`arayim("fourteen cities with their villages"(Jos 15:36); Qeiyafa does not seem to have any dwellings among Garfinkel's excavated "houses"; it was a military base and would have lodged the men in tents, within and beyond the walls; it was also a centre for collection and storage of produce; and it was, I ween, the religious centre for King Saul's kingdom, after the priests of Nob had been slaughtered, and Saul had broken with Samuel and Yahweh.

The big surprise for me in Petrovich's article (97-98) is Ada Yardeni's suggested reading of the restored pot-inscription from C11 as "Ishba`al ben BD`[ShTRT]", meaning "son of 'Servant of Astarte'", referring to King Saul and his devotion to the goddess. I had already thought that King Saul had adopted this form of apostasy, given that worship of Baal and `Ashtart (Ashtoreth) was endemic in that period (Judges 2:13; 1 Sam 7:4, 12:10), and the armour of Saul was placed in a temple of `Ashtart (1 S 31:10); the shrine C10 at Qeiyafa was probably for a goddess, I would think; and Baal is represented by standing pillars, in buildings C3 and D1, and in a chamber of the South Gate. Ishbaal had a Yahweh name originally, YShYW (Yeshyahu? "YHWH is") (1 S 14:49). Garfinkel has stated that the name of the king who built Qeiyafa would have to be mentioned in an inscription to confirm this. Well, I can see that three kings are named on the ostracon and the jar: Dawid (with GLYT, Yahu, and Elohim) in the prophetic oracle on the ostracon, and Ishbaal, and Saul as "Servant of `Ashtart", on the jar. Saul was the reigning King, Prince Ishbaal was the governor of Shaaraim (resident in the central palace, not in building C11, where his jar was found), and David was the anointed "servant of Elohim" (Ostracon lines 1 and 2), who was destined to be King of Israel (line 4).

The either-or mistake in this situation is based on Garfinkel's insistence that this fortress belongs to David as King of Judah in the Iron IIa period, and he attempts to exclude Iron Ib from the picture, and he barely mentions Saul in his manifold discussions of the evidence. Iron Ib is clearly represented at the site, as is IIa; I suggest the latter evidence shows that King Saul was importing foreign luxury goods late in his reign, along with the "foreign gods" (1 S 7:3) including Ashtart of Sidon (1 Kings 11:5, Solomon's apostasy). Doug has cleared up this matter.

 https://sites.google.com/view/qeiyafaassaarayim/home

9/12/2021

One thought I want to add to this heap of knowledge is still on the theme that there is more than one answer to a question. You might know that I have an obsession (leaning towards cognizance rather than craziness) with the origin of the alphabet. Most theories on this subject relate the proto-alphabet to the Egyptian hieroglyphic system, and rightly so; it is clear that wherever possible the original alphabet borrowed hieroglyphs, and the clearest sign (showing that the inventors understood the characters they borrowed, pace Orly Goldwasser, who thinks they were ignorant) is the nfr hieroglyph, meaning "good and beautiful" (o-+), which was related by Western Semites to their corresponding word t.ab ("good"), to represent the consonant /t./ T.et; and you will find this on the Petrovich table of proto-consonantal signs. But this West Semitic consonantal script (the proto-alphabet) had a predecessor, which was actually its progenitor, since most of its letters were already in this West Semitic syllabic script. Thus, the nfr hieroglyph was employed there (already applying the acrophonic principle) for the syllable T.A, again derived from t.ab ("good"). All other alphabet theories are lopsided, and limping on one leg. This is not a personal whim, but the fact of the matter. (Please pardon my arrogant version of  "in my humble opinion".)
   One current theory (let those who read understand) has the Israelian Hebrews in Egypt inventing the proto-consonatal script, that is, the proto-alphabet. Certainly this is a hypothesis that deserves to be explored (though it is surprising that the Bible does not record this idea or fact).
    Like all the other theories, this one also needs to take account of the knowledge we now have of both these West Semitic writing systems (proto-syllabary and proto-consonantary) operating in tandem, all around the Fertile Crescent and across the Atlantic Ocean, in the Bronze Age, 3,000 years before Columbus. West Semitic inscriptions are found in connection with a silver mine in Norway, a gold mine in Texas, copper mines in Michigan, gold mines in Puerto Rico.
    If we want to involve the children of Israel in all this, we could invoke the tribe of Dan and their ships, and Asher on the coast (Judges 5:17). 

https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2019/10/phoenicians-in-puerto-rico.html
https://sites.google.com/site/collesseum/huron-stone

9/12/2021
I see that Doug has extended the time for this discussion, so my feeling of urgency can calm down. More scholars may have obtained the book in the next few weeks, and thus its contents can be discussed more reasonably.
   Much (indeed most) of my published work in this area of early inscriptions (in respectable journals and in websites) has been ignored for many years. I am therefore taking this opportunity to report my findings in this forum, since Doug can muster bigger crowds of hearers than I can; however, those scholars who see themselves as the experts in this field of Northwest Semitic palaeography and epigraphy, will be scrupulously avoiding this exchange of ideas, and so the culpable visually impaired will go on deceitfully leading those whose eyes are dim and their vision restricted through no fault of their own. This sounds like a big conspiracy
   Looking again at the Petrovich theory of the invention of the consonantal proto-alphabet in Egypt by the ancestors of the children of Israel who eventually left Egypt and settled in their Promised Land: I am asking some questions, and also giving some answers. 

14/12/21
Seventeen days left to comment, with a circle of 211 participants, and no need to be wearing a protective face mask in front of a computer screen, and formal dress is not required. As Doug's books reach more hands and eyes, this place can become less of a book bazaar with customers bargaining over the price, and more of a forum for discussion of relevant details. I read /riid/ the table of contents regularly, as a useful synopsis, but I have not read /redd/ the book itself yet. However, I could at least say something about the cover of Volume 2 (which I have not seen, but no matter): we are told that it depicts Yosep (Joseph) as Vizier (and that is right, is it, that he did hold that office?), and Moshe (Moses) as leader of the Exodus (no doubt about that, right?).
   If the Hebrews (specifically "the children of Yisra'el") were so interested in writing systems, and actually invented the proto-consonantary, the first alphabet,  for their own language (the Petrovich hypothesis, which I do not deny and can not falsify) then they must have been employing a script before their proto-alphabet was available. What could it have been? At this point the exponents of all varieties of ABT origins put on their blindfolds, and say "I see nothing". I am left standing alone pointing to the West Semitic Proto-syllabary (forgive me, those of you who support this idea, but are powerless to admit it). This writing system apparently goes back to the time of the Egyptian Old Kingdom, as its signs show influences from the hieratic (cursive) characters, more than the monumental hieroglyphs (pictorial). Its inventors had the idea of making a compromise between the Egyptian and Mesopotamian scripts. It borrowed most of its signs from Egypt, and from Mesopotamia it took the idea of syllabic writing. This Semitic script was functioning for hundreds of years, actually at least a thousand, and at its middle point on its timeline it was joined by the WS Proto-consonantary, which borrowed  a majority of its signs from the Proto-syllabary (usually the -a syllabograms). As far as the evidence goes (and it grows in size constantly) the syllabary covered 22 consonants; accordingly, we would expect the same situation to apply in the Proto-consonantary, and in 1988, in my first published article on the subject, I stated that I could only find that number. However, the flaw in my presentation was that I was including two signs that proved the proto-alphabet to be longer than that: eventually I realized that ooo< (Hayt. hank) was H, and = (eyebrow) was not Zayp but Dayp. These were two letters that were not in the syllabary. I can castigate my 1988 self vociferously and reproachfully
   I am now offering my updated version of this:
https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2015/11/h-l-h-m-order-of-alphabet-letters.html
This little tablet from Thebes (15th Century BCE) offers the beginnings of two orderings of the short proto-alphabet, I propose.
   Also from Thebes are a set of tablets with proto-consonantal abgadaries (and a proto-syllabic text) which present the letters of the original long version.
https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2007/10/gordon-hamiltons-early-alphabet-thesis.html
   This fits my model of the early history of West Semitic scripts in the Bronze Age:
Proto-syllabary (22 consonants) > Proto-consonantary (more than 22) > Neo-consonantary (22) > Neo-syllabary (22).
  I will attempt to justify this thesis on another of our allotted days.
A question, elegant and eloquent in its rhetoric, relating to the situation I outlined at the outset: If Joseph and his family were involved in the origin of the alphabet (either inventing it or simply adopting it), and if Moses was learned in all the lore of the Egyptians, and was a ready scribe who knew all the varieties of West Semitic scripts, could he have bequeathed the Neo-syllabary to Israel, to take with them into their new world? Does anyone have an answer o this hypothetical question? I will try.

9/12/2021 Bethsheba Ashe
From cryptcracker - "but this could represent human breasts (thad or shad), and therefore stand for the sound Th (as in thing)". I haven't been able to take this suggestion seriously, because the value of the Shin is 3, (and thus I keep thinking of the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon Six). :D

OK, accordingly, in these circumstances I will give you three (unsolicited, but not as in soliciting, that is, accosting for a cost) answers to your concealed question, not one.
   (1) Your classical allusion escaped me at first, but I now see you are referring to  Eccentrica Gallumbits, and Douglas Adams (who is now hitchhiking through the entire universe, and beyond, no doubt); I think this phenomenon does occur in humans sometimes. No intended allusion to Ephesian Artemis/Diana, I presume (her pendulous adjuncts are a mystery to me, anyway).
    (2) Perhaps you are hinting at your magic numbers; whether you are or not, I will say that if the exponents of gematria came along at the Shin = tooth stage, they would have no idea of the thad/shad origin of the letter as \/\/ breast; I think Doug and I are the only ones who  accept this; will you not make it three? Incidentally, another sign in the Proto-syllabary was 'I from 'iratu (single) breast, but the 'alpu "ox" (`A > `alep) won the glottal stop position  in the alphabet. If there are three or more peaks in the sign /\/\/\ it is water and Mem.
   (3) Back to the Proto-consonantary (a term that Doug and I both employ, I think) and its progenitor the Proto-syllabary (which is unmentionable in Academia, because it has been placed under a tapu (taboo),  or a h.erem ban, or the curse of ostracism); but I talk about it all the time, since it is essential to any theory of the origin of the alphabet, and yet is everywhere missing in action.  That system did not distinguish Sh from Th; and so SHA was Shad (not Thad), and SHI was shimsh (sun);  but both found a place in the proto-alphabet, with Thad as Th and Shimsh as Sh; in the subsequent Neo-consonantary (a shortened alphabet of 22 signs) the \/\/ character became the letter covering three (!) sounds: Th, Shin, Sin. In the proto-alphabetic inscriptions, the Thad consonantogram is not easy to identify, wondrous to tell; but I can spot it; in the Wadi el-Hol horizontal text, for example.
https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2009/12/wadi-el-hol-proto-alphabetic.html
   Here, everybody takes the vertical-stance \/\/ as M, but it is actually \/\/ Th; naturally, the true M occurs three times (with three or more peaks, according to the prescription I have just formulated). The Sun-sign O_o (sun disc and serpent) is in the vertical text, twice; some read it as K, thus leaving the whole text without a single sibilant (that is all right if the language is Maori, but not Semitic). In the Sinai corpus, I can only see the Th-sign, once (in this stance /\/\), in Sinai inscription 375, where it occurs twice (twice + once = thrice?!) with L between the two instances, making a total of ThLTh 3 (later Hebrew and Phoenician ShLSh). The story, with its connections with the Bible, is told here:
https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2007/08/sinai-food-rations-sinai-inscriptions.html
"Rations (`RKhT, as in 2 Kings 25:30): out of (MG, min-go) the granary ('ST) three (ThLThT) handfuls (S.BTM, as in Ruth 2:16), and garden-pickings (MS`T GN)"

Bethsheba, Iif you and I are not careful we could land ourselves in deep mire, and be told to dry up. I admire your creative artistry, and it could well be that the great Mind of the Universe inserted those wondrous things into the system, for you to discover; but the starting point is with the brains of the human inventors of the West Semitic writing systems in the Bronze Age: they created the Proto-syllabary (a REbus syllabary, only the first syllable of the pictured word is operative, except when the picture is functioning as a whole word, a logogram) and its offshoot the Proto-consonantary (a Rebus consonantary, only the initial consonant is sounded, but it can also act as a logogram). Those wise scholars took what was available from previous writing systems, and remoulded the pieces for use with their own language.
   Stop me if you have heard this one before (or let it sink in more deeply into your consciousness): there is ample evidence that both systems were taken over lands and seas in the Bronze Age, all around the Fertile Crescent, and to the New World, which was then much newer than when Columbus and Cortes collided with it. Both of these closely related systems are represented in West Semitic inscriptions from the Nile Delta region, which I have published, but they may have been overlooked in Douglas's two books. The question that they will need to be asked is: Are you in Hebrew? (I will leave this matter for another time, but it seems analogous to asking Latin inscriptions whether they are in French, even though French, and Italian, are descendants of Latin. Languages change, though if I ruled the world I would not let them.
   My Rabbinic teacher at Sydney University showed us some numerical meanings of characters in Genesis; he had been a mathematician in Germany, and he escaped; but the question is whether the writer of the narrative had deliberately put these tricks and treats into the alphabetic text. It is possible that some of these writings have been through a succession of script-systems: the Proto-syllabary, which begat the Proto-consonantary, which like our own intimate viruses, went through a series of mutations, but it engendered a third (Count 'em!) category, the Neo-syllabary, used only in the time of the Judges; and then it made way for the Phoenician international consonantal alphabet. Of course, nobody knows about the Neo-syllabary, because she was only rediscovered in the 3rd (yes!) millennium of this currebt era (CE); it is hard being the chosen one all the time, but she sat herself in my lap, and demanded to know what I was going to do about it. I will not say she is triple-breasted. On reflection, I realize that she does have three breasts: three forms of the breast sign (\/\/ Shad, Shin); each has its own peculiar shape and stance (for shu, sha, shi), and this principle applies generally in her system. The difference with the Proto-syllabary, the great grandmother, is that she had a different picture-sign for every syllabogram.
   Returning to the numbers game, there is a known case of deliberate playing with numerals in a scripture, namely the Apocalypse, and its three sixes (666); I am not making this up, you understand. Recently I was reading again about Nero's Domus Aurea, and I remembered my idea that the New Golden Jerusalem was its Christian counterpart and rival (I must publish that sometime, but you can run with it, if you like.). The numerical value of his name (NRWN QSR) is 666. The same applies to King Louis XIV (LVDOVICVS, add them up) who persecuted the saints, and set himself up as a sun-god, and went about saying "The State? That's Me.").
https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2011/09/666-and-all-that.html
  It has occurred to me that the followers of one of the 3 (sic!) Abraham religions (as also millions of Hindu Indians) envision God as three in one (1G = 1 X 1 X 1). So if 3 is their favourite number, we should not be surprised to encounter it everywhere. The whole Universe is a tripartite system: Creator (father/mother), Matter (son), Spirit (gas).

28 December 2021

Three days left to comment and I have at least three more things to comment on. One of my Bible and Syriac teachers (Alan Cole) laid down the statute: "With every new book that you read, also read two old ones".  I will be reading a very new book soon on the subject of Israel in Egypt (Haendel has an oratorio with that title, and I have sung in it),
   We are into triads again, and a recent book I have mentioned in this forum is the third in a trilogy: Ahmed Osman, The Lost City of the Exodus (2014). He identifies Joseph as Yuya (supposedly Semitic), a minister of Amenhotep III; I could play games with that name, so that YU is for YUSUF and YA is for his father YA`QOB. The lost city is Tell Haboua (presumed to be Zarw), and Ramesses I (not II) was the Pharaoh of the Exodus, and that was Pi-Ramesse; and Moses WAS Akhenaten (!). At least he information about Zarw is useful.
   (2) H. H. Rowley, From Joseph to Joshua (Schweich Lectures 1948) examines all the theories, and reaches his own synthesis, with a double entry into the land, at different times, starting with the Habiru of Akhenaten's reign; as a postscript he reports the midrashic idea of Exodus Rabba 20:10, whereby Ephrain mistakenly departed 30 years too early.
   (3) John Arthur Thompson (my Hebrew, Aramaic, Akkadian, and Biblical Archaeology teacher), The Bible and Archaeology (1962): Joseph was in the Hyksos Period; Moses led them out c. 1280 BCE, early in the reign of Ramesses II.
   Apparently these three authors all made wrong choices.

29 December 2021

Right now (in response to people who can not grasp it, as you Dennis Skalden seem to have done) I am writing a little essay, using English language as the basis,  for the invention of a new script. going through the stages you have mentioned. English spelling/orthography is entirely logographic (choose, chose, loose, lose), so we can use all its written words as (non-pictorial) logograms in my game. The REBUS principle is applied at each stage: REBUS (picto-logogram > rebogram/morphogram), REbus (pictogram > acrophonic syllabogram), Rebus (pictogram > acrophonic consonantogram)l but the logograms and morphograms remain at the two later stages, till the Phoenician and Grecian alphabets become the standard.
     [1] Egyptian writing was complicated but we can read it. The hieroglyphs influenced West Semitic writing at both stages. In Gubla/Byblos the Western Semites admired it from afar, and they borrowed a selection of its signs for the characters in their own new script, but they wanted them for a simplified syllabary, using the acrophonic principle, as a modification of the rebus principle (REbus). But their consonantary was devised in Egypt, it now appears, and they could see the hieroglyphic consonantal system close up, and adjust their syllabary accordingly. That is what they did; the logoconsonantary was a simplification of their existing system under the influence of the Egyptian style; and they updated the pictographs (many of which had started as Egyptian Old Kingdom cursive signs).  My grand unified theory of the origins of the alphabet needs to be presented simply, as a Christmas present, perhaps. Let us approach this problem (that is, the problem of not understanding what I am talking about) by inventing a writing system for English, since the peculiar way that particular language uses the alphabet is monstrous, atrocious, abominable.
   Speakers of English are cripples in regard to their knowledge of phonetics. They do not realize that every word in their spelling system is a logogram, and each one of them has to be learned individually (how to say it when you see it, and how to write it when you hear it). A logogram is a "word sign"; it could be a picture of what the word represents, or a conglomeration of alphabet letters, like "knowledge". Try sounding that logogram out, letter by letter, starting with the sound /k/ and ending with d g (not j) e, and you will end up with nothing like "nolij", but that is what it is supposed to say. Today I saw "fowl" misprinted as "foul"; they are different words, but they are the same in sound (homophonic), though they should both be written /faul/; and "cow" and "cowl" should be cau and caul; "soul"is sounded differently from "foul", and it is correct, but you still need someone to tell you how to pronounce it; but "maul" and "Paul" (and "pall") should be /mool/ and /pool/; while "pool" ought (oot!) 2B (testing! texting!)  puul; "peel" and "peal" are really /piil/; pill is pil, and pull is pul, and put is put (right!), but but is bat, and bat is baet, and bait is beit (or baeit), and beet is biit, and bite is bait, and fight is fait.
   Never mind (make that /maind/, if you don't mind).
   Here we go, then, taking modern international English (that is my language, though I also have an Australian dialect lurking beneath it) through the stages of the development of the alphabet.
   Suppose we want to represent a cat sitting on a log. We can draw a picture of it.
   If we are moving towards making a writing system, we can call the image of each object (the cat and the log) a "pictograph" or a "pictogram", and go even further and define them as "logographs" or "logograms", symbolizing the word for "cat" and "log" in any language. This is very useful, and we can compile an enormous collection of pictorial symbols for objects in our own culture and environment, but still be unable to reproduce exactly a sentence such as: "The cat goes (or went) to a log and sits (or sat) on it". We can represent "go" by two striding legs, for example, and that would be an "ideogram", denoting the idea of movement; but how are we going to write all the words of the Queen's Christmas message with only images and symbols?!
   The next step is to invite Uncle Rebus to help us out, with his REBUS principle. This solution was utilized, in ancient Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Egypt (also China, but we will stay in West Asia and North Africa, where the alphabet was invented).  The word REBUS is Latin (5th declension, ablative case, plural) of the word res, "thing"; its singular ablative form is re, as in re: "in the matter of, concerning"; rebus denotes "by means of things", with particular reference to representing words (including personal names) with pictures to give the sounds of its parts. Thus, "beanstalk" could have a bean pictured with a stork, and this shows that the rebus writing system uses words as "rebograms" or "morphograms", giving up their own meaning to provide their sounds to other words that have the same sounds (or similar); the "stork" picto-logogram (pictogram acting as a logogram) can also stand for the noun "stalk" and the verb "stalk"(since the -r- and -l- are not pronounced any more, in standard English); and the "bean" picto-logogram can likewise function as a "rebus morphogram" or "rebogram", lending its sounds to another "form" (Greek morph), namely the verb "been".
   Practising "rebus writing" we can now quote Shakespeare, by drawing this set of pictograms and symbols: 2 BEE OAR KNOT 2 BEE. The three words "be, or, not" are written with picto-logograms functioning as rebo-morphograms, and "to" has 2 (an ideogram for duality) as its rebogram. Incidentally, English "to, too, two" are now all pronounced the same way, but none of them tells us to say tuu, and so they have to be classified as "unphonetic" logograms.
   That was easy, using picture language to record speech in a form of writing; but how do we go on to finish the quotation: "that is the question"? Indiid, dhaet iz dha cwestyen, dhaet iz dha thing. Notice my dh- for th- in "dhaet" and "dha" but not in "thing" (which is phonetically correct spelling, but you still have to learn how to say it and write it). Some speakers of English show us this distinction by saying "dis ting". When we construct our ideal script, it will need to distinguish unvoiced consonants (p k s sh t th) from their voiced counterparts (b g z zh d dh), which add vibrations of the voice in the throat to the sounds being made in the mouth, and add to the total of  sounds available for constructing words. In Polynesia, where I live, consonants are not voiced (except m n ng), and this limits the possibilities.
    Moving on to our next stage, we have an extension of the rebus principle. If we want to put the idea of "good food" (actually gud fuud) into writing, we could comfortably find a logogram for the noun food, but not for the adjective good.

Milk Bowl Inscription

14/3/2022 A few folks in this forum will be expecting me to comment on the new inscription from ancient Lakish (now commonly known as Lachish, but not to its inhabitants in the Bronze Age). Two interpretations of the text have been published: first by Misgav (in Antiquity) and now by Petrovich (in Bible and Spade); both of these examinations find the root 'BD ("serve"), possibly as the noun 'BD ("servant" or "officer"), and a noun NPT ("honey"); this produces a felicitous concurrence of "milk and honey"(as in "a land flowing in ..."). Consequently the person who is mentioned in the text is a bee-keeper, though no name is given, which is strange if this is an identity document, such as a calling-card, and it has been suggested that it belonged to an Israelian invader, since only the children of Israel used the proto-alphabet in the Bronze Age, because they invented it. I am glad Douglas has made this article readily available I myself have previously inspected the inscription, trying various possibilities for its decipherment, and I will take the opportunity to share my findings with this multitude of thinkers here gathered amidst the distraction of the destruction of cities, by invaders who think they have the right to take over the land on which they are trespassing; but there is a faint connection. It is not widely known, but as far as I am aware there is only one person who is qualified by long and wide experience to read Bronze Age West Semitic inscriptions (with the proviso that the only person who really knew the intended meaning of an inscription was its author, who composed and recorded it). Here you are liable to fall down and roll around laughing, so you should ensure that you will be enabled to stand up again, when I say: in my humble opinion that percipient person is my miserable self. The two published attempts at reading this ostracon failed to ask the question: Is the inscription consonantal or syllabic? The four possibilities in a new paradigm are: Proto-syllabic, Proto-consonantal, Neo-consonantal, Neo-syllabic. Practitioners of West Semitic epigraphy must be competent in all four of these categories to succeed. At this point I will merely state that my preferred reading of the inscription identifies two words, each with an indication of the scribe to show where it begins. The first word is a verb, and the second word is its object, a common noun. However, I must first express my appreciation and admiration to Doug Petrovich for his book on the Sojourn and Exodus of ancient Israel, as represented in the archaeological and historical records of Egypt. This monograph (Origin of the Hebrews) has been engrossing me throughout this year, and here would be a good place to respond (favourably) to it, in subsequent postings.

17/3/2022 Truly, I have been deeply and blissfully immersed in the new Petrovich book (Origins of the Hebrews) for many weeks now, and I am still pondering over it; my yellow marking pen has highlighted excellent ideas on every page. I was in conversation with the author when the monograph started to take shape, and it seemed to me that he had made very good choices for the period of Joseph's entry into Egypt (in the Middle Kingdom, before the Hyksos empire); and also for the exit of Israel in the time of Amenhotep II (1440s) rather than Ramesses II (13th century before the current era). He boldly confronts the Egyptian historical and archaeological evidence with the sacred lore of the Torah, and finds that the holy family (the children of Israel, as we love to call them) fits neatly into the picture.     Nice little touches are added to the history, such as (p. 212) the reunion of Moshe with his wife Sippora and their two sons, Gershom and Eliezer, and his father-in-law Yitro, priest of Midian, at the Mountain of God (Ex 18); when Moshe told Yitro all that "He-who-is" had done to the Egyptians (Ex 18:8) he was fulfilling a divine command from YHWH (Ex 9:16, 10:2). (Apparently Yitro had introduced Yahweh to Moshe, and this mountain of Elohim could well be Har Karkom, inside the territory of modern Israel, and now a place of pilgrimage to see a burning bush phenomenon; it has stones bearing the letters YH and YHH, and a prophet's cave at the top.) http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2012/02/mountain-of-yahweh-in-israel-elsewhere.html 
   Notice how the problem of uttering the Divine Name YHWH (the Tetragrammaton) is solved by the translation "He-who-is" ("I-am-who-I-Am"), avoiding a possible breach of the commandment against taking the Name in vain (Ex 20:7). 
    Positions in Egyptian history and on the landscape of Egypt are found for the Patriarchs, but not their personal names. A son of Manasseh called Shekem (Joshua 17:2) may be the Shekam on a Sinai hieroglyphic inscription (Sinai 405, Fig. 16, p. 249), pictured leading a donkey on which a Levantine dignitary is seated; and a case is made (p. 126f) for this personage to be the same as the one on Sinai 112 (p. 349, Fig. 15), namely Khebded, "brother of the Ruler of Retjenu" (the Levant); this Semitic person is tentatively but confidently identified as Manasseh, the younger brother of Epraim, who would be "the ruler of Retjenu"; Epraim was presumably a ruler in Avaris over the Hebrews in Goshen, having been given the blessing of the right hand of the Patriarch Ya`qob, while his elder brother Manasseh was blessed with the left hand (Genesis 48). One would think that this Semitic man on the donkey was Sebekhotep, the treasurer in whose name Sinai 405 was promulgated. This would raise further interesting speculation, since the Egyptian names adopted by the Yosep family included Sobek, the crocodile god of the Nile (p. 51-55). By the way, a name Yaqobhar has been found on seals from this era in Egypt, but it is not highlighted in this book for possible identification with Jacob-Israel (p. 236).       The name Yosep (or the Egyptian name he has in the Bible) is not found in the available evidence; but I was surprised and astonished to see a waterway named Bahr Yusef (an offshoot of the Nile River), which is connected with the city Lahun, a place where Yosep would have been active, in tomb-building, irrigation, and grain-storage operations (p. 96-98). How far back does that Arabic name go? Did its ancient Egyptian appellation also have a reference to Yosep? With regard to the caption over the man on the donkey picture on Sinai Egyptian inscription 115 (Fig. 15), which DP controversially renders or rends (his critics would say) as "6 Levantines: Hebrews of Bethel, the beloved". I would suggest it begins with "6 copper collectors", or "6 producers of copper ingots". I may be deluded in this instance, but I will be asserting in the remaining days of this forum that everyone overlooks the dominant theme of copper metallurgy in this field of study.

18/3/2022. I presume that Jeffrey's "morphological science" is not related to "morphic resonance" (Sheldrake). In any case, I am not sure how it applies to my system of the evolution of West Semitic writing systems in the Bronze Age. 

    (1) In the Egyptian Old Kingdom period of history, Western Semites devised an acrophonic syllabary, "the Proto-syllabary", borrowing Egyptian hieroglyphs for most of its characters (syllabograms); Douglas (75, 78, citing Colless 1998) seems to acknowledge this "Canaanite syllabary" (I now call it the WS Proto-syllabary) as the predecessor of the acrophonic consonantary that was: 
   (2) the Proto-alphabet, invented in Egypt in the Middle Kingdom period; again most of its letters were Egyptian hieroglyphs, and most had already functioned in the Proto-syllabary; 
   (3) the Proto-alphabet gave birth to the Neo-syllabary (in the time of the Judges and the early Monarchy in Israel). Lamont, in your examination of the Qeiyafa Ostracon, the Izbet Sartah Ostracon, the Beth-Shemesh Ostracon, and the QW Bowl, you must have noticed that each of the letters adopt three different shapes or stances in these inscriptions (the 'Alep is the most obvious); this is the Neo-syllabary. The third line of the Qeiyafa text has two names written syllabically: gu-li-yu-tu and da-wi-di (even if we ignore the vowels we can still see glyt and dwd, and recognize two people from the Bible who are known everywhere in the world). 
   The Proto-syllabary, the Proto-alphabet, and the Neo-syllabary are easily confused, since all three are constructed with the same materials! We can make a blessed Trinity of them, but we must not confuse the "Persons", and we must not refer to it as "the Early Alphabet", since it is two parts syllabary and one part consonantary. It is a sacred body of early West Semitic acrophonic, logographic, morphographic, syllabic, consonantal scripts. (But there is a long and sirt form of the proto-alphabet, so it is a quadrinity.)
   Christopher Rollston has published an inventory of "Early Alphabetic" inscriptions; it is an ill-informed mishmash of the various types. 
https://sites.google.com/view/collesseum/classifying-inscriptions
So when I hear you, Lamont [T. Conyers], using this aberrant term "Early Alphabet", I heave a deep sigh, of dismay. Along with Rollston, you name Cross, McCarter, and Hamilton; they are members of the establishment that has built a stone wall against my ideas since 1988. I could add Benjamin Sass and Israel Finkelstein, as a sub-groupof this cabal.  Only Hamilton has ever cited my work, but merely to dismiss it as bizarre. Notice that all these scholars (and you yourself, I suppose) work with the Albright paradigm (the fish is Dag instead of Samk; the door is not Dalet but Het; the tied bag is Q not S.; P is not a mouth but some of the G-throwsticks). Consequently, they can all do faulty palaeographical studies of inscriptions, but not translations of them. They are against me because my paradigm is not what their esteemed mentors taught them. It pains me to be critiquing some of Douglas Petrovich's translations of inscriptions, but I want to remind him and other participants in this forum that his historical and archaeological work in this book is mightily impressive. 

19/3/2022 Thanks for calming me down, Lamont . I know that this is not the first time that you and I have had dealings, but I am desperately trying to promote my paradigm with my last breaths. Nobody will quote me, because of the syllabic parts of my scheme, for fear of losing tenure (truly). Academia tells me constantly that I am being cited, and I can find out by whom if I pay them money from my old-age pension; I am the only Brian Edric Colless in the world, but there is an astronomer and a biologist both named B. Colless, and they are creating confusion for the Academia algorithms. 
   On Gordon Hamilton's work, notice that he first accepts the faulty Albright paradigm (and in all other respects but not epigraphy, I am an enthusiastic Albrightian, and also a supporter of Douglas Petrovich on the same terms) and he (Hamilton) works from there (arguing from false premisses), relentlessly searching for corresponding hieroglyphs (as does Doug, but he bases his quest on a redesign of my table of signs). http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2007/10/gordon-hamiltons-early-alphabet-thesis.html In the article of Hamilton you refer to, he forces the syllabic Megiddo signet ring ("Sealed: the sceptre of Megiddo") into "early alphabetic" mode, with no success. https://sites.google.com/site/collesseum/megiddoring And elsewhere he performs the same act of torture on the syllabic Lahun heddle jack, which might have been included with all the other important West Semitic material from Lahun in Doug's book, as it was made in the Levant and brought to Egypt. http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2020/08/lahun-syllabic-heddle-jack.html 
   Turning to the LMBO inscription of Lakish: there are a number of unwise assertions made by Petrovich: it is said to be "an alphabetic inscription" (17a), and this article is thereby disqualified by my criteria, for not considering the clear possibility that the inscription is syllabic. Next, "the inscription is Hebrew", affirmed as a "fact"; if the word nopet is there, this would prove it, since it is a Biblical Hebrew word for "honey", whereas its cognate nubtu means "bee", and acrophonically supplies the syllabogram NU (a picture of a bee) in the Proto-syllabary. However, it is not nopet, because the "p' is a misreading, by Misgav and Petrovich. It is certainly a West Semitic inscription, and I will discuss whether it is syllabic or alphabetic, or both (sic!). It was made in Lakish, and I will supply two companion ostraca for it; I will also suggest that it neatly fits into the archaeological context in which it was discovered; Doug's account of the evidence has helped me see that.

 

20/3/2022 Lamont has cited an early article of mine on proto-alphabetic inscriptions from the Levant, and I want to invoke it here in connection with some of the statements in the LMBO article we are examining. " In your article in Abr Naharin, in 1981 you classify them in your paper as Proto-Alphabetic Canaanite Inscriptions. (Colless, Proto-Alphabetic Canaanite Inscriptions Abr Naharin vol. xxix, 18-66)." First, a correction and some clarification of this statement: the year of publication was 1991, not 1981. Abr-Nahrain (now Ancient Near Eastern Studies) is a publication of Melbourne University, where I obtained my MA and PhD in Semitic Studies; many scholarly articles of mine have been published there, and they are not all about the early alphabet and its predecessor and progenitor, the West Semitic Proto-syllabary (as I now call it). I did not use the term "Proto-Alphabetic Canaanite Inscriptions"; that was the page-heading that popped up in the editorial process; my title was "The Proto-Alphabetic Inscriptions of Canaan", though I notice that the heading I gave to my drawings was "Proto-Canaanite inscriptions"; I would not use that term now, nor "Proto-Sinaitic".  Proto-alphabet is an informal word, covering the WS Proto-consonantary (long alphabet) and its offspring the WS Neo-consonantary (short alphabet), but not the Neo-consonantary's offshoot, the Neo-syllabary. I have already said that the foremost practitioners of "Early Alphabetic" research are unable to distinguish the four categories, and make fools of themselves in confidently publishing their confused essays; but their errors are understandable though not inexcusable, since all four scripts are constructed from the same materials. I now have sufficient evidence on all four of these types (gathered from near and far, including "Transatlantica" 3000 years before Columbus) to see that they arose in an evolutionary process, represented by the formula: PS>PC>NC>NS. An important side-shoot of the Proto-consonantary was the WS Cuneiform consonantary, used for a limited time in the Late Bronze Age throughout the Levant (not just at Ugarit). The term West Semitic is applied to all these types: even if the first alphabet was devised by the holy Hebrew family of Israel (to record their own particular language, though we know, for example, that eventually the dialects of the tribes differed in their pronunciation of shibboleth) it was also used by Canaanians, Phoenicians, and Arabians, in the Bronze Age. In my next instalment here, I will relate the abundance of inscriptions gathered in my 1991 article (on the Proto-alphabet in Canaan) to the hypothesis in this LMBO essay: the proto-alphabet was the sole property of Israel, in Egypt and Sinai, from 1840 to 1446 BCE (p. 17b); and "the concept of a Canaanite alphabet thriving in the southern Levant is unsustainable" as "the first alphabet -- comprised of 22 Hebrew consonants -- derived from Egypt and spent its first four centuries of existence there and in Sinai before spreading to the Levant" (p. 22b).

 

21/3/2022

With regard to Doug's statement about "our view on any issue": "We have to be willing to subject it to all of the available evidence". In his article on the LMBO he states: "the first alphabet -- comprised of 22 Hebrew consonants -- derived from Egypt and spent its first four centuries of existence there and in Sinai before spreading to the Levant" (p. 22b)". So, the Hebrews in Egypt had a monopoly on the alphabet from 1840 to 1446 BCE (p. 17b) This is a bold assertion requiring detailed scrutiny.
   "22 Hebrew consonants". This is an argument for the short proto-alphabet as being primary (but this is the secondary Neo-consonantary in my scheme, though both forms of the proto-alphabet, long and short, might conceivably have been contemporaneous right from the start, but not in Egypt or Sinai, where the long Proto-consonantary prevailed, I would insist) . However, the letter Sin, alongside Shin makes 23 consonants, and each of the BGDKPT letters has two consonants in Classical Hebrew, and that adds another half-dozen.
   Never mind, the table of signs published in DNP's first book (Carta) actually refutes this number 22: significantly it has a sign for Kh (palatal fricative, thread) alongside Hh (guttural, H.et., from h.as.er, enclosure); they are presumably regarded as allographs (alternative signs for the same sound) but they are strictly distinguished in my interpretations of the inscriptions (!). On the DNP sign-table Z is represented only by =, which is properly Dh (it occurs only as Dh "this" in Sinai, and on the Lahun bilingual ostracon, Origins Fig. 17, p. 250); he overlooks the real Z (|><|) as found in Sinai 383 alias 375a (of which he has kindly provided a new photograph) on the right-hand side (in mpkt zkt. "pure turquoise") and the Dh on the left side. Petrie found another inscription in Egypt with the same Z/Dh pair (ZQQ "refine" and PDh "fine gold"), together with two copies of the long proto-alphabet, which must have been written by Hebrews, according to the absolute ruling of the DP hypothesis. In my experience of the proto-alphabet, Shin and Sin are both covered by the sun-sign (shimsh, circle for sun-disc, or uraeus serpents with or without the disc) which is not recognized in DP's imperfect system, but is confused with the breast-sign (thad \/\/), which is the one that survived for Shin in the Neo-consonantary, the short proto-alphabet. Following his rule rigidly, DP has to allow Egypt-based Hebrews to have written two short proto-alphabetic inscriptions from Canaan (21b-22a). 

   (1) The Lakish Dagger, found in a tomb (as also customary at Avaris, presumably to protect its owner in the afterlife). He leaves it undeciphered, but a plausible contextual interpretation was offered in my 1991 article (35-36). DNP's own table (loosely based on mine) provides the sounds: S. (bag, though commonly taken as Q), R (head), N (snake, horned viper), S (Samek). Hence a nice little command : S.R NS "Foe flee" (both words are in Hebrew dictionaries, but also in the Ugaritic lexicon). 

    (2) The Gezer Sherd is acknowledged (after Albright) to be a fragment of "a cylindrical cultic stand". Right, we have identification, and its setting is the Gezer high place (Colless 1991: 31-32). K (hand) N (snake) B (house) "KN B(ayt) "Temple stand" DNP claims that there is only one instance of B as a logogram (3 times on the Lahun Bilingual), but here is another one . The word kén is also in the Bible, but I would not support a case for the author of this label being a Hebrew, since there are 23 other Proto-consonantal label-inscriptions on pots from Gezer (1991:20-31), not mentioned by DNP, but considered by Misgav in his study of the LMBO and the comparative evidence from Canaan. Then there is the Shekem Plaque, three Ajjul Vessels, and a collection of bowls from Lakish, plus two Proto-syllabic ostraca from Lakish, to compare with the LMBO. The Megiddo Gold Ring is syllabic, and I have noticed that throughout the 2nd millennium BCE, the Proto-syllabary and the Proto-alphabet are usually found together: Byblos (important syllabic documents, and a bowl inscribed with an alphabetic text similar to the Wadi el-Hol inscription, relating to celebration of the goddess with food and drink); the Nile Delta (lamps including niru "lamp" in their inscriptions); Norway at a silver mine (ZQQ "refine", again); Caribbean islands. What about the alphabetic inscriptions at a gold mine in Texas? (The evidence for all this is available in my print publications and on my websites.) Babylonia is a long way from Egypt, but the early alphabet (apparently Phoenician style) is found in the Sealand royal archives, First Dynasty, 16th Century BCE. Accordingly, "all the available evidence" does not allow the proto-alphabet to be confined to Egypt until the time when the people Israel moved out of Egypt.
   (Incidentally, I would think that whereas all children of Israel were Hebrews, not all Hebrews, `Apiru, were Israelian.)

 

21/3/2022 In reply to Coby Ingram "Brian, where have you published your data that would indicate the alphabet spread to Canaan only after the Exodus?"
   You can see now that the data actually tells us that in the Bronze Age (3000 years before Columbus) the Proto-alphabet together with its companion and progenitor the Proto-syllabary, was established all over the world, including the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the Americas, wherever there were metals to be mined. This metallurgical aspect of all the inscriptions is totally neglected by the pandits ("self-appointed experts") of West Semitic epigraphy, and I have to put Douglas Petrovich into that sheepfold, in that aspect only; leaving me to be the lone shepherd bewailing my fate, saying: "All who came before me were thieves and robbers". Not really. But we live in the age of the propagation (as in propaganda) of false information, most of it released sincerely and innocently, but fake news nonetheless.

 

25/3/2022 Thus spake Coby Ingram:
"... it is a short step from Egyptian to proto-consonantal writing ...".
I will base  a "sermon" on this "text" (indecently ripped from its "context", and perhaps departing from the intended meaning of the author). This homily constitutes a stern rebuke to all those who are engaged in fallacious "early alphabet" studies.
   Verily I say unto you that this is true: the Egyptian writing system was an elaborate consonantal script, and the West Semitic proto-consonantary can be seen as a simplified form of that model: it had a reduced number of glyphs (which were, for the most part, Egyptian hieroglyphs with new Semitic references), and it permitted its characters to function as logograms, ideograms, rebograms (rebuses), as well as acrophonic consonantograms (not many people know that, but the data verify this multifariousness). Informally I call it the proto-alphabet,  but formally the proto-logo-morpho-consonantary.  
   However, scholars who write books and essays about alphabet origins customarily assume that the first alphabet  was a uniquely new system, constructed from borrowed Egyptian hieroglyphs by applying an innovative invention known as the acrophony principle, whereby the initial consonant of the West Semitic word denoted by the pictorial (or symbolic) glyph was pronounced (/b/ from baytu "house', /g/ from gamlu "throw stick, boomerang", /d/ from daltu "door") and strung together to make words and sentences. Sadly, some deny that acrophony has a place in the story!
   The pandits of early alphabetic science fail to notice that the proto-alphabet had a predecessor, which also employed Egyptian hieroglyphs and the acrophonic principle in its formation. The Proto-syllabary, particularly associated with Gubla (Byblos), was a logo-morpho-syllabary, and the application of the acrophonic principle produced syllabograms, syllable-signs. The house glyph was sounded as /ba/, but it could could also stand for the whole word /bayt/ as a logogram, or as a rebogram (or morphogram) it could act as a rebus, and its "form" (morph) could lend its consonants to other words.
   *First, allow me to emphasize that in allowing its pictophonograms to function also as logograms and rebograms it was reproducing the developmental stages of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian writing systems, with the addition of acrophonic syllabograms.
   *Second, let me point out the unnoticed fact that the acrophony principle was simply a modification of the rebus principle, invoking RE-bus for syllabograms, and R-ebus for consonantograms, but also REBUS for rebograms (morphograms).

   *Third, most of the consonantograms in the Proto-consonantary had already functioned as syllabograms in the Proto-syllabary, for hundreds of years.

   * Fourth, the Proto-alphabet was apparently invented in Egypt by Western Semites resident in Egypt and well acquainted with the Egyptian writing system: this knowledge reinforced their use of logograms and rebograms in their own syllabic script, but also showed them that consoantal writing was feasible.

   *Fifth, it would possibly be seen from the consonantal inventory of the Egyptian Hieroglyphs that a West Semitic consonantary should be more proficient in distinguishing Semitic consonants than the Proto-syllabary had done with its twenty-two, and so a group of new consonant sugns had to be invented; the ignoring of vowels in the consonantary may also have been a factor in giving clearer indications of the words in inscriptions.

    Thus, the first alphabet had a genealogy, and its genes came from two parents, one Semitic, the other Egyptian.

   These five "theses" are hereby nailed to every WS epigraphist's door, to be assimilated and promulgated. This is a new paradigm, poised to promote a paradigm shift. However, the history of Western science shows that the purveyors of new paradigms have to wait until they are dead, to see acceptance of their theories.
  
  
 

Accordingly, we can well imagine that the idea of a WS consonantal script arose in Egypt, among "Asiatics" (Western Semites) who were resident in Egypt; and DNP has turned our attention to a famous Hebrew family who had settled in the region of Goshen, in the Nile Delta (Genesis 45-50). 

  
    However, it might have been another set of Semites who invented the alphabet, and brought it with them. For example, the group of men and women depicted in a Beni Hasan tomb painting in the 19th Century BCE, dated to the 6th year of the reign of Senwosret II (Sesostris II), a Pharaoh who took Joseph into his service, in the scenario of DP; their leader was named Ibsha, "ruler of a foreign land" (Hyksos!); they had music (a stringed instrument), weapons (bow, spear, and throw stick), and bellows on the back of a donkey, showing that they practised metallurgy, like Tubal-Cain (Genesis 4:2) (ne'um Albright). The  inscriptions from the Sinai turquoise and copper mines are mainly about metallurgy and metalsmiths, and this is the key to their deciphherment, in line with all the archaeological evidence discovered around the mines; I seem to be the only one who has followed this clue; all new attempts at interpreting these texts (including those of DNP) ignore this evidence and produce nonsense.

   Also in the environment are the military Semites, under General Bibi

22/3/2022 The date of the Exodus that Douglas presents to us (as I see it) is *circa* 1446 (corresponding to what Evangelicals called the 1440 Exodus when I was a young scholar and teacher). The circumstantial evidence (in a good sense) for his case (Chapter 8) is attractive and enticing. The Pharaoh of the Exodus would have been Amenhotep II in the 15th Century (approximately 1453-1416, before the current era). Unfortunately the case is bedeviled by confusion in the dating of the reports on the foreign campaigns of this king. But in one particular year of his reign he stormed into Asia in November, in the winter (but kings should go forth in the springtime, the Bible says, 2 Samuel 11:1). He returned with a large number of captives, including 3600 Apiru (Hebrews, as the English say). This emergency campaign would have been necessitated by the sudden emigration of all his Hebrew slaves from the eastern Nile Delta, and that is a reasonable hypothesis. 

   This raises a problem in my twisted mind. I have already suggested here that whereas all descendants of Ya`qob-Yisrael were Hebrews (`ibrim), all Apiru/Habiru were not Israelian. I also remember that the Exodus refugees were or included a mixed multitude. Given that a crowd of Hebrews had again been planted in Egypt, and Ramesses II had Apiru toiling for him in the 13th Century, we now need a second Exodus from Egypt. A Jewish tradition has headstrong Epraim sauntering forth first, and a later contingent followed. The remnant of the original 3600 Apiru might have sneaked into the Promised Land by the back door, via the Mountain of Yahu (Har Karkom) in the south of Israel. The first horde of Exiteers had their nation's constitution handed down to them at the same mountain, in 1446, but they had gone walkabout for 40 years (approximately?), arriving home in 1406, bent on conquest, achieving it by 1400.

    On the other hand, the 3600 Apiru may have settled down in Egypt, waiting for the prophet Yirmyahu to come seeking refuge from the Babylonians; and also founding the Jewish community at Aswan, in Yeb (Elephantine). However, perhaps they had never heard of a man named Moshe, and were not relatives of the children of Israel......

 5/4/2022
The Lakish Milk Bowl Ostracon Inscription and Joshua's Conquest
This is a review of an article on the LMBO inscription, by Douglas Petrovich, published in Bible and Spade 35/1 (2022) 16-22. The reader will need a copy of the inscription (from p.16) and DNP's drawing (p.18) for constant reference. My printout of the article is in a binder with pages 16 and 18 side by side.

   (1) Prolegomena

Douglas Petrovich makes momentous claims for this fragment of a broken milk bowl: it is written in the Hebrew language; it has Proto-consonantal writing, in the script of the world's oldest alphabet, which was the invention and intellectual property of the people of Israel, resident in Egypt as entrepreneurs but then slaves, until they left Egypt and invaded and occupied Canaan  at the end of the 15th Century BCE ; the sherd (an identity document of an Israelian official) was left behind when Joshua and the Israelian army raided Lakish; this provides "possibly the most definitive form of evidence of the Conquest yet discovered" (p. 16).
   First, in all fairness, we could suggest some alternative views and possible new insights:

   [Prolegomenon 1]
   This would not have been the point in time when the proto-alphabet came out of copyright and passed from the children of Israel to the peoples of the world; the Proto-consonantary was already known (together with its parent script, the Proto-syllabary) in Lakish during the Bronze Age, and indeed in Mesopotamia, Scandinavia, and America; the Bible does not credit the Chosen People with this worldwide expansion of West Semitic literacy. Incidentally, contrary to DP's claim that the Proto-alphabet, "the world's oldest alphabet", had the same number of consonants in its inventory as the later Israelian (Hebrew) versions of the consonantary, the Proto-alphabet (as represented in Egypt and Sinai) had characters for several more consonants than 22; the table of signs on which DP bases his case is equivalent to my first  table (1988, 1990) not my current charts (Colless 2014, The Origin of the Alphabet, 102-103), based on thousands of hours of research on an abundance of available but neglected evidence. This needs to be understood.
    [Prolegomenon 2]
    The LMBO inscription is in the Hebrew language, as are all proto-alphabetic inscriptions, DP would say. This general assertion is not sustainable. Originally the Proto-alphabet was used for West Semitic language, with some dialectal differences; thus, in some of the Sinai inscriptions [RB NS.BN, "chief of the prefects", 346, 349; ShBN, "captives"or "elders", 365; NSKN, "pourers (of copper, ), 352] the masculine plural has final N (nunation, as in Aramaic, and Arabic); but final M is also attested (mimation, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Hebrew) [ThLThT S.BTM, "three handfuls", 375, cp. Ruth 2:16)]. I do not know how DP handles this evidence. Could we invoke the line: "My father was a wandering Aramean"?  

    Thanks, Jared. I wanted  clarification on whether it was Jacob or Abraham (both went down to Egypt, as stated in the source, Deut 26:5ff, which I have now consulted, and I see that  Ya`qob is meant). Remember, I was questioning DP's assertions, such as this (p. 17b): "Previous scholarship [meaning his first book, BEC interjects] has demonstrated [far from it!] that Hebrew is the language behind the world's oldest alphabet, which is attested on proto-consonantal [right!] Hebrew [an unfounded assumption] inscriptions from Egypt and Sinai dating from 1840 to 1446 BC (Petrovich 2016)". I pointed out the nunation (-n) on masculine plurals in some Sinai inscriptions, as in Aramaic and Arabic, and one instance of mimation (-m), as in all the West Semitic dialects of Kanaan. DP wants the language of the Holy Family to be a West Semitic dialect peculiar to them; and it will be the same as the language of the Torah and the Prophets.
    So, Jacob was "a Syrian ready to perish" (RV) 'arami 'obed (the verb 'bd can mean stray, perish, wander about), a vagrant. Ponder on this: Jacob and his kin (moon-worshippers, judging by their names, Terach, Laban) were based in Harran, Padan-Aram, Aram-Naharayim (note the Hebraic mimation).  They were all "Aramites";  the Hebrew creed (recited to a priest when the first-fruit tithe was offered) affirms that their ancestral roots were Aramean.

   [Prolegomenon 3]
   The archaological evidence of destruction in Kanaan [pronounced knaan, please, and the k is not silent!] is attributed to Joshua bin Nun and the army of Yahweh, at the end of the 15th Century BCE (according to the view of DNP).  The editors of the Lakish inscription date it to the middle of the 15th CenturyBut around 1440, in the winter month of Novemeber, Pharaoh Amenhotep II (c. 1453-1416) had stormed into the Levant, and returned with "89,600 men", including 127 princes of Retenu, and 3.600 Apiru (Hebrews)  (ANE Texts 1955, 246-347). DP argues that this massive raid was necessitated by the Exodus of the Israelian slaves . Am I offering a new theory, if I suggest that this prepared the ground for Israel's invasion? Or is it adumbrated in DNP's second book? The Israelian siege of the great city of Lakish lasted one day, and its entire population (possibly no longer populous) was put to the sword (Joshua 10:31-32). Had the Pharaoh of the Exodus cleared the way for the Israelian Hebrews to enter the land? But there were still the descendants of thirty-six hundred Apiru needing to be brought home!

11/4/2022 Lakish Milk Bowl Ostracon Inscription
[Prolegomenon 4] 

"Yahweh gave Lakish into the hand of Israel" (Jos 10:32). This is my cue to mention a research project I undertook many years ago, to show that Yahweh God, as King of Israel (1 Samuel 8:4-9), performed all the roles and functions of kingship, as documented in royal records of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia: Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, Saviour, Ruler, Lawgiver, Manager, Designer, Recorder, Rewarder, Arbiter, Healer, Teacher, Mediator. A central role of a monarch was to be a warrior and give his people salvation, that is, victory over their enemies. Thus, after the defeat of the Egyptian at the Yam Sup, Israel exclaimed: "Yahweh has been my salvation ... Yahweh is a warrior" (Exodus 15:2-3). Similarly, the prophet Zephaniah in the 7th Century BCE proclaims (3:15-17): "Yahweh the King of Israel is in you midst ... Yahweh your God ... a warrior who saves you". Before the divine intervention at the sea-crossing, Moshe had said to the people of Israel (Ex 14:13-14): "Stand firm and see the salvation of Yahweh .... Yahweh will fight for you while you stand still". This pattern is observable in the account of the (supposed) victory of Ramses II at the Battle of Qadesh: "Stand firm, my army ... and see my victory, I being alone"; and his soldiers praised him as one "who saves his army on the day of fighting". Ramesses II is a candidate for the position of the Exodus Pharaoh in the 13th Century BCE; and the poets and chroniclers of Israel would have wished to exalt the power of Yahweh over the prowess of human kings. But the idea of the single-handed victory can also be documented in the 15th Century BCE, in the campaign reports of Amenhotep II, another possible Exodus Pharaoh: "Not a single one was with His Majesty" (ANE Texts 245b); "alone, without a single one with him, while the army was far from him" (247a). These details might give comfort and support to upholders of either Exodus date, and even to those who think there might have been two Exoduses.

Lakish Milk Bowl Ostracon Inscription 

    (2) The Honeyman

 Here we go, closely examining the LMBO inscription, with the help of DP (Doug Petrovich): photograph p. 16, drawing p.19.  Things to keep in mind: only the person who composed the written text knew its intended meaning; the writing system used could be syllabic or consonantal (possibly both). Like every labourer in this field (except myself BEC, as far as I know), DP fails to ask the syllabic question, and this could instantly invalidate the interpretations of Misgav and Petrovich.
   The drawing is one of DNP's artistic assemblages, offering a transcription (always Hebrew, showing only the 22/23 consonants available in that system) and a translation (always English, never Russian), with Bible references for elucidation of words he thinks are included in the texts; unfortunately, these diagrams usually have some misreadings, so they must be constantly checked by referring to the photograph. Each letter has a useful label (H4 H5 H1 H2 H3 H? H6 H7 H8, the sequence he chooses raises suspicion from the outset). He assumes that a piece has been broken off on the righ-hand side.
   Starting from the top right corner,  the first letter (H4!) is an incomplete circle; purportedly, the other half has broken off; as a circle in the ancient Israelian/Phoenician consonantary represents the consonant`Ayin (eye), he makes that choice; but this circle has a dot beside it, looking like a nipple on a breast, Hieroglyph D27 |)- ; in his absolute requirement of an Egyptian forerunner for every letter of the Proto-alphabet (though this was found to be an unachievable goal in the making of the Proto-syllabary, and it will not work for Waw or K or T or Th in the consonantary), DP invokes this Egyptian breast-character  (in duplicate!) to explain (quite incorrextly) the Sh-sign (which actually represents the sun, shimsh, whereas the breast-sign \/\/ is Th, from thad/shad breast).
   Snakes alive!

    H5 is one of four possible snake-signs (N) that I can see (also H? H6 H7), but it is deemed to be a crook (L). with its staff (rather than tail) extended hypotherically. 

   H1 is circular and perhaps another `Ayin, if this letter is neo-consonantal (short proto-alphabet), but SHI (shimsh sun) if it is proto-syllabic.

  H2 is a house-sign (bayt) and thus B (or BA).

  H3 is clearly a door (dalt) and a D (or DA); it is definitely not a fish (dag).

  H? in the middle of the cluster of signs is accepted as N (but I demur).

  H6 is a cobra, N (or NA).

  H7 is proposed to be P (remains of a mouth), but the drawing is inexact.

  H8 is a cross (T).
   DNP wishes this to say:
   `BD `L NPT ( Hebrew: `ebed `al nopet)
   "Servamt over honey" (or "in charge of")
Surprisingly, DP declares that "the inscription contains no exclusively Hebrew words" (22a), but he adds that ir is obviously Hebrew, because all proto-consonantal inscriptions were Hebrew; this is not true. Howbeit, nopet, as a word for honey, is confined to the Bible! Nevertheless, although the thought is appealing, as I have studied inscriptions from the apiary at Rehob, the sequence NPT is not in this text.
<http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2020/10/ancient-rehob-and-its-apiary.html>

  

   (3) The Gardener

Right, with the photograph and the drawing under our piercing gaze, we try another approach to this inscription.
   We start at the top right corner, where a significant dot indicates the beginning of the text, I suggest. 

   H4 is completed as a full circle by DNP, hence `Ayin (eye); but the upper line of the circle is not necessarily there; in either case, this arc or semicircle could be a simple Lamed.
   H5 is serpentine, though DNP argues for Lamed, a crook (Hieroglyph S38). Supposing it is a snake, and thus either acrophonic N or nakhash as a logogram, the intention might be to say: "(Belonging) to Nahash", or "For Nahash"; DNP offers such a possibility for the mysterious central sign H? as an abbreviation of the name of the person involved (22a).
   Another idea would see H4 and H5 as bovine horns, and combine them into a single character, 'Alep. I will argue that the writer was an amateur farmer, but he could not be a cowboy! I can not find an equivalent shape for horns on an 'Alep (ox) anywhere else.

   If we accept `N or `L as the intended letters, these could be names: `Eli, for example (the priest of Shiloh, and also borne by my paternal grandfather and greatgrandfather).

  The combination `L has a plethora of possible references: `ol "yoke", `ale "foliage",  `ll "glean", and  *`al "work, deed" (posited by The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew edited by David Clines, my fellow-student at Sydney University).
   H1 (`ayin eye) H2 (bayt house) H3 (dalt door) seem to give us the root `BD (verb: work, cultivate, serve; noun: servant, slave).

   Another dot appears below the D; the drawing of DNP joins it to the adjacent letter to produce a snake (presumably considered to be a viper, Hieroglyph I9); but it is not a case of adjoining with connection; viewed with one's better eye, a space is evident. Presumably the dot is introducing a new word, or perhaps another sequence of words.

   H9? is clearly a throwstick (Hieroglyph T14), gaml, hence G, no question about it.
   If the general direction of the writing is sinistrograde (r > l) (p. 18b), then the next letter should be H6 in the bottom right corner. It is a cobra (Hieroglyph I10), and (correctly) identified as N on the drawing. 

   H7 is another cobra, but in a different stance (Hieroglyph I12); the drawing is inexact; it has a short straight line at the bottom, instead of the small semicircle that is visible on the photograph, giving the snake a curly tail.

  H8 is a cross, then as now /t/T (it has no hieroglyphic counterpart, as the signature of an illiterate person).

  Putting it all together as a statement of two West Semitic words, we have tentatively:
   . ' ` B D . GNNT
   I cultivate a garden
   '`bd: 1. p. sg. impf. 

   gnnt: gannat (Numbers 24:6)
   Perhaps he is saying: Look, I am trying to grow a garden here, so would you mind not trampling on it? The heartless invaders set it on fire.
   The question of whether this is a syllabic or consonantal text  (the curly-tailed cobra is more typical of the syllabary than the consonantary; the syllabic T has a long stem, as is slightly the case here; all the consonants in this text could be -a syllabograms) is discussed elsewhere, together with a syllabic ostracon from Lakish which has the word gannat (a prayer of a father for the prosperity of his son and his garden). 

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

  Cp. the man that God put in the Garden (gan) to cultivate ('bd) it (Genesis 2:15).

   When we finally ask for the archaeological setting of this inscription, it was discovered in a charred patch of ground, containing barley seeds (p. 18a). QED.

4/May/2023
I am reminded of the sign that my dearly departed wife Helen placed in our front garden (which includes my potato patch, and tomatoes): WELCOME TO MY GARDEN.
 

  The Lakish Lice Comb

March 2026
DNP wrote on his Academia page:
.... a term in archaeology that is known as an "heirloom" (i.e., an object that originally is from an earlier time but is found in a physical context of a definitively later time). Every archaeologist (I assume) would agree that heirlooms exist. For example, I am convinced that the Lachish Ivory Comb Inscription is an heirloom. I wrote and published a journal article on this inscription (on a comb), which is downloadable from my academia.edu webpage. The comb was discovered at Lachish in the occupational layer that is just before the Babylonian invasion of Judah that began in 587 BC, under Nebuchadnezzar II. IMHO, I have proven to any objective person that the inscription was composed in Hebrew, actually the Hebrew that palaeographically is datable to the 15th century BC (based on the way in which the writing of individual letters changed over time). The final pre-Babylonian-invasion phase of Lachish clearly is Judahite, dating to the end of the monarchy. Therefore, the comb inscription is literally a Hebrew remnant in the hands of a Hebrew person of many centuries later. I would say that this is indisputably an heirloom.

 
A nice photohtaph is viewable here:

https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2022/11/Lachish-comb-2.jpg

Well, Doug, I am not happy at this moment late in the day: I had spent several hours responding to you at great depth, and I lost it all. I had carefully copied out my reading of the ivory lice comb, together with those of Daniel Vainstub and Douglas Petrovich, for readers to compare.  I should have written it in a Word document as I am doing now, and the transferred it to Academia. So, here is my short response.

Daniel Vainstub’s edition is here:
https://www.academia.edu/88359056/A_Canaanites_Wish_to_Eradicate_Lice_on_an_Inscribed_Ivory_Comb_from_Lachish

Douglas Petrovich has posted his version here (a cure for clean hair):

https://www.academia.edu/128064714/_2024_A_New_Take_on_the_Lachish_Ivory_Comb_Inscription_An_Ancient_Hebrew_Cure_for_Unclean_Hair

Brian Colless has an un-peer-previewed essay (“attempt”) here:
https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2022/11/lakish-lice-comb.html

There are 2 main lines, and a third has an X sign (K) with a snake (N)
Petrovich reads from top to bottom (L>R)
DV and BC from bottom to top (R>L)
I justify the latter view by noting that the comb first stated that it is fit for removing lice; as an afterthought it added a clarification above this, noting that it would clear the owner’s beard as well as their hair.

PETROVICH
T
Tt M ‘ ` D
Kh Ss L Y M W M T Kh
“You / stay unclean until / it is separated into an orderly arrangement each day and is spread apart”
(Reading this backwards offers: “Sealed, and water for the parched …”, but neither direction seems to offer a cogent meaning that the writer would have intended)

VAINSTUB
Y T Sh Kh Tt Dh L Q M / L S {R W} Z Q / T
“May this tusk root out the lice of the hai[r and the] beard”
(This plausible wish is concocted by numerous misreadings of letters, and there is no word for tusk or root out)

COLLESS
 ‘ K Sh R H R M K L Q M L / W L S ` R K W L Z Q / N K
“I will effectively remove every louse / from your hair and from your beard”
(The comb is the speaker, and the writing is syllabic)
We are at an early stage of the Neo-syllabary, which flourished in the period of the Judges.
https://www.academia.edu/42283185/The_Lost_Link_The_Alphabet_in_the_Hands_of_the_Early_Israelites
https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2021/04/another-lakish-inscription.html

The readings of DP and DV are invalidated by their failure to recognize this syllabary, and their misidentifications of letters. Evidence for the syllabary is provided, for example, by the presence of three instances of R, a human head, all of them unnoticed by DP and DV. One type is found in the middle of each line, having hair standing on end, with dots apparently indicating nits and lice; the second type is prone and plain, below the H (stick figure of a rejoicing person, inverted), producing the verbal noun HRM, “taking away” (Hip. of rwm).
   I submit that my interpretation is KOSHER. In fact it has the verb root KShR (succeed, be fit for purpose).

March 2026

https://sites.google.com/view/collesseum/michaelmas-massacre