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April 11, 2006
The Cuneiform Short Alphabet: Part 9.
This is the ninth in my series of studies of the texts possibly written in the short cuneiform alphabet. In this study I look at two related tablets, one from Beth Shemesh and the other from Ugarit. You can find the first study, "Amurriyu's Sacrifice to Baal: KTU 1.77" and a table of contents directing you to the other studies at The Cuneiform Short Alphabet: Part 1. Along with Part 1 is a brief discussion of the short cuneiform alphabet, a discussion of methodology and a disclaimer in which I advise the reader on my qualifications or lack of same to study these texts. Please read this material. I have updated the Bibliography to include works cited for the first time in this study.
The Beth Shemesh Tablet: KTU 5.24 = 8.1 (AS 33.5.165, Barton [1933])
and
The New South Semitic Abecedary from Ugarit: KTU 9.426 (RS 88.2215, Bordreuil and Pardee [1995])
Preliminary Remarks:
Two cuneiform abecedaries are very important in any discussion of the history of the alphabet: AS 33.5.165, the Beth Shaemesh tablet (KTU 5.24) and RS 88.2215 (KTU 9.426). See most recently Hayajneh and Tropper (1997), Vita (2003) and Sass, (2005), 112 as well as several others. The goal of this study is to answer two related but somewhat different questions. First, is the Beth Shemesh tablet (KTU 5.24) representative of a short cuneiform alphabet? And second, to what extent is the morphology of certain letters (specifically b, d and m) indicative of a short alphabet?
Elihu Grant (1933), 4, discovered AS 33.5.165 (KTU 5.24) during his 1933 excavations at Beth Shemesh at the base of a wall in a building that he (1934), 27, dated to the Late Bronze Age. Barton (1933), 5, identified the writing as alphabetic cuneiform, similar to the Ugaritic alphabet. There followed a long history of scholarly frustration by the likes of Gaster (1934), Virolleaud (1935b) Albright (1964) and Puech (1986), among many others (for a more compete list see the accompanying PDF file).
A simple analogy will illustrate the frustration. How would you interpret the following string of letters on the assumption that this string of letters had meaning?
abgdeszhTiklmnxoprctvfkPwSFKhcŧjĵ
Divide it into words where you will and to make it a little more interesting, assume that many of the letters, particularly in the second half of the string, are unreadable and you had never before seen some of the ones that are readable. You are free to choose from any languages that seems best.
Some readers may have guessed by now that this string of letters is an attempt to represent the Coptic alphabet with a more or less standard Latin alphabet and it has no meaning beyond that.
Well, that is a close analogy to what it was like for the fifty-five years between the discovery of the tablet and when Loundine (1987) proposed at a conference in May, 1987 that the text on the Beth Shemesh tablet was best understood as an early example of the south Semitic alphabet.
The next big step in the understanding of the Beth Shemesh tablet came in 1988 with the discovery and subsequent publication (Bordreuil and Pardee [1995]) of RS 88.2215. Found among an archive of some 400 tablets in the house of Urtēnu (Pardee, [1996]), the tablet contains an abecedary that is also in the south Semitic alphabet order.
Tracing of the Beth Shemesh Tablet:
(Based on photograph published in Barton (1933), 4)
I believe that the top line of this tablet should be read from right to left and the bottom line be read left to right with the transition taking place somewhere in the broken area on the left. I explain why I think this in the PDF file.
Tracing of the RS 88.2215
(Based on photograph published in Bordreuil and Pardee [1995], 856)
(The signs marked with a "?" differ significantly from their more common morphology. There is a clear indication that there was once writing below the scribe line but no letters can be identified. The right edge has a q and an r and perhaps one or more additional letters.)
All agree that this tablet is to be read from left to right. In my estimation, this tablet has all the earmarks of a student exercise.
The orthography of both of these texts is, to say the least, interesting. While I discuss it in more detail in the accompany PDF file one might note that the m and the d on the Beth Shemesh tablet is more like what one might see in a "standard" Ugaritic text while the m and the b on RS 88.2215 is more like what is seen in the texts that are undisputable in the short cuneiform alphabet. Also, note the small circular letter I call š on the Beth Shemesh tablet. Is this the same as the s2 in the certain short alphabet texts? While I think it may be the same or a very similar symbol I believe it has a more narrow phonetic range in the Beth Shemesh tablet than in the short cuneiform tablets. Also, notice the use of the ħ and the h(?) (het and chet) in the Beth Shemesh tablet. I believe that these and a few other items indicate that the Beth Shemesh tablet contains a long alphabet but not "the" long Ugaritic alphabet. Again, to understand why I think this see the PDF file.
Comparison between KTU 5.24, RS 88.2215 and the Old South Arabic Alphabet:
The following represents a summary of what is in the PDF file concerning this comparison. Whatever one thinks of the relationship between these three alphabets or the placement of the various letters in the lacunae, it is nearly impossible to imagine that KTU 5.24 or its source lacked a b. This reason alone should cause caution when positing anything other than a long alphabet.
It is clear that RS 88.2215 stands closer to the order of the Old South Arabic Alphabet than does KTU 5.24. It is also clear that they are both in that tradition.
Concluding Remarks:
While many issues, including the history of the alphabet and its propagation around the Near East, rest on how one interprets these two tablets, this study is primarily interested in just two questions. Is the Beth Shemesh tablet (KTU 5.24) representative of a short cuneiform alphabet? And to what extent is the morphology of certain letters (specifically b, d and m) indicative of a short alphabet? While there is room for debate, it is my considered opinion that the KTU 5.24 represents a long alphabet but clearly not the long alphabet of the canonical Ugaritic texts. An interesting future exercise might be to review the whole corpus of cuneiform alphabetic texts in an effort to identify any that might be written in this alphabet. If I am correct that the Beth Shemesh tablet does not represent any short alphabet, then it is certain that the morphology of the individual letters is not diagnostic of a short alphabet. And, as RS 88.2215 shows, letter morphology may not be diagnostic of a text in the canonical cuneiform alphabet either.
Posted by Duane Smith at April 11, 2006 2:47 PM | Read more on Ugarit |
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