Language:
English
Year of publication:
2023
Titel der Quelle:
Maarav; a Journal for the Study of the Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures
Angaben zur Quelle:
27,1-2 (2023) 1-38
Keywords:
Alphabet History
;
Inscriptions, Semitic
;
Bronze age
;
Middle East Languages
;
History
;
Middle East Antiquities
Abstract:
New potentially Early Alphabetic finds from Umm al-Marra (Syria) and Sealand (Mesopotamia) require a reanalysis of traditional out-of-Egypt hypotheses of alphabetic origins. The present article considers the problems new discoveries introduce for traditional understandings of alphabetic invention and proposes to overcome these problems by endorsing a northern Levantine context for the Early Alphabet’s initial adaptation from Egyptian hieroglyphs and its earliest usage. This proposal is contextualized among—and arguably supported by consideration of—other scribal experiments in the Levant during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.
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