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November 9, 2005
New Abecedary from Tel Zayit
In the light of the research I am doing on the texts written in the short cuneiform alphabet, the discovery of a 22 letter ABC on a stone from Tel Zayit. The so called abecedary is incised on a limestone boulder in the aleph-beth-gimel order.
Experts in ancient writing said the find showed that at this stage the Hebrew alphabet was still in transition from its Phoenician roots, but recognizably Hebrew. The Phoenicians lived on the coast north of Israel, in today's Lebanon, and are considered the originators of alphabetic writing, several centuries earlier.[snip]
The two lines of incised letters, apparently the 22 symbols of the Hebrew alphabet, were on one face of the 40-pound stone. A bowl-shaped hollow was carved in the other side, suggesting that the stone had been a drinking vessel for cult rituals, Dr. Tappy said. The stone, he added, may have been embedded in the wall because of a belief in the alphabet's power to ward off evil. [New York Times]
This last point is particularly interesting in the light of Benjamin Sass' suggestion that the much older Beth Shemesh abecedary might be votive. The Beth Shemesh is in the heh-lamed-het order in the South Arabic tradition. I will have a lot more to say about the Beth Shemesh abecedary in a future post.
Not everyone thinks the Tel Zayit abecedary is Hebrew.
Dr. Rollston, who disagrees with the contention that the alphabet is Hebrew, said that the presentation of the findings at the Society of Biblical Literature conference will set off a furious debate among experts -- with the language just one of the issues under discussion. "It will be huge," he said. "Let the games begin." [Post Gazette]
Pictures and a little more technical discussion is in order.
Via PaleoJudaica
Update: November 10, 2005
Tyler Williams has a good write up in this inscribed stone with an instructive picture. Man, the writing sure is big. Each letter is about the size of a person's
Reference:
Posted by Duane Smith at November 9, 2005 9:43 AM | Read more on Archaeology |
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