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Proto-Sinaitic script
Middle Bronze Age script

The Proto-Sinaitic script, known from around 30-40 inscriptions mostly found in the Sinai Peninsula and two from Middle Egypt, is the earliest trace of alphabetic writing. It is sometimes called Early Alphabetic and is the ancestor of the Ancient South Arabian and Phoenician alphabets, which influenced the Greek alphabet and many others. Likely developed by Canaanites or Hyksos adapting Egyptian hieroglyphs, its earliest inscriptions date from roughly 1850 to 1550 BC. The discovery of the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions in Egypt supports an Egyptian origin. The script’s development is linked to the Bronze Age collapse and later Semitic kingdoms in the Levant, with notable inscriptions such as the Byblos inscriptions.

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Discovery

According to William Albright, in his book "The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions And Their Decipherment", the first inscriptions in the category now known as Proto-Sinaitic were discovered and copied by E.H Palmer in Wadi Magharah during the winter of 1868–1869. His text was not published until 1904. However, E.H. Palmer notes that he was not the first, others had done work before him and as such his work was more of a "Re-discovery". In the winter of 1905, Flinders Petrie and his wife Hilda were conducting a series of archaeological excavations in the Sinai Peninsula. During a dig at Serabit el-Khadim, an extremely lucrative turquoise mine used between the Twelfth and Thirteenth Dynasty and again between the Eighteenth and mid-Twentieth Dynasty, Petrie discovered a series of inscriptions at the site's massive invocative temple to Hathor, as well as some fragmentary inscriptions in the mines themselves. Petrie immediately recognized hieroglyphic characters in the inscriptions, but upon closer inspection realized the script was not the combination of logograms and syllabics as in Egyptian script proper. He thus assumed that the inscriptions showed a script that the turquoise miners had devised themselves, using linear signs that they had borrowed from hieroglyphics. He published his findings in London the following year.20

Ten years later, in 1916, Alan Gardiner, one of the premier Egyptologists of the early and mid-20th century, published his own interpretation of Petrie's findings, arguing that the glyphs appeared to be early versions of the signs used for later Semitic languages such as Phoenician, and was able to assign sound values and reconstructed names to some of the letters by assuming they represented what would later become the common Semitic abjad. One example was the character , to which Gardiner assigned the ⟨b⟩ sound, on the grounds that it derived from the Egyptian glyph for 'house' , and was very similar to the Phoenician letter bet, whose name derives from the Semitic word for “house”, bayt. Using his hypothesis, Gardiner was able to affirm Petrie's hypothesis that the mystery inscriptions were of a religious nature, as his model allowed an often recurring word to be reconstructed as lbʿlt, meaning "to Ba'alat" or more accurately, "to (the) Lady" – that is, the "lady" Hathor. Likewise, this allowed another recurring word mʿhbʿlt to be translated as "Beloved of (the) Lady", a reading which became very acceptable after the lemma was found carved underneath a hieroglyphic inscription which read "Beloved of Hathor, Lady of Turquoise".21 Gardiner's hypothesis allowed researchers to connect the letters of the inscriptions to modern Semitic alphabets, and resulted in the inscriptions becoming much more readable, leading to the immediate acceptance of his hypothesis.

Development

The letters of the earliest script used for Semitic languages were derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs. In the 19th century, the theory of Egyptian origin competed alongside other theories that the Phoenician script developed from Akkadian cuneiform, Cretan hieroglyphs, the Cypriot syllabary, and Anatolian hieroglyphs.22 Then the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions were studied by Alan Gardiner who identified the word bʿlt "Lady" occurring several times in inscriptions, and also attempted to decipher other words. In the 1950s and 1960s, William Albright published interpretations of Proto-Sinaitic as the key to show the derivation of the Canaanite alphabet from hieratic.23

According to the "alphabet theory", the early Semitic proto-alphabet reflected in the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions would have given rise to both the Ancient South Arabian script and the Proto-Canaanite alphabet by the time of the Late Bronze Age collapse (1200–1150 BC).24

For example, the hieroglyph for pr "house" (a rectangle partially open along one side, "O1" in Gardiner's sign list) was adopted to write Semitic /b/, after the first consonant of baytu, the Semitic word for "house".2526

A transitional stage between Proto-Canaanite and Old Phoenician (1000–800 BC) has been proposed by authors such as Werner Pichler as the origin of the Libyco-Berber script used among Ancient Libyans (i.e. Proto-Berbers) – citing common similarities to both Proto-Canaanite proper and its early North Arabian descendants.27

Inscriptions

Serabit inscriptions

Main article: Serabit el-Khadim proto-Sinaitic inscriptions

The Sinai inscriptions are best known from the Serabit el-Khadim proto-Sinaitic inscriptions, carved graffiti and votive texts from a mountain in the Sinai called Serabit el-Khadim and its temple to the Egyptian goddess Hathor (ḥwt-ḥr). The mountain contained turquoise mines which were visited by repeated expeditions over 800 years. Many of the workers and officials were from the Nile Delta, and included large numbers of Canaanites (i.e. speakers of an early form of Northwest Semitic ancestral to the Canaanite languages of the Late Bronze Age) who had been allowed to settle the eastern Delta.28

Most of the forty or so inscriptions have been found among much more numerous hieratic and hieroglyphic inscriptions, scratched on rocks near and in the turquoise mines and along the roads leading to the temple.29

The date of the inscriptions is mostly placed in the 17th or 16th century BC.30 An alternative view dates most of the inscriptions to the reign of Amenemhat III or his successor circa 1800 BC.31 It has been suggested that the dating period includes the reign of pharaoh Senwosret III.32

Four inscriptions have been found in the temple, on two small human statues and on either side of a small stone sphinx. They are crudely done, suggesting that the workers who made them were illiterate apart from this script.

Wadi el-Hol inscriptions

Main article: Wadi el-Hol inscriptions

The two Wadi el-Hol inscriptions (Arabic: وادي الهول Wādī al-Hawl 'Ravine of Terror') were carved on the stone sides of an ancient high-desert military and trade road linking Thebes and Abydos, in the heart of literate Egypt. They have been dated to somewhere between 1900 and 1800 BC.33 They are in a wadi in the Qena bend of the Nile, at approx. 25°57′N 32°25′E / 25.950°N 32.417°E / 25.950; 32.417, among dozens of hieratic and hieroglyphic inscriptions.34 Rock inscriptions in the valley appear to show the oldest examples of phonetic alphabetic writing discovered to date.35

The inscriptions are graphically very similar to the Serabit inscriptions, but show a greater hieroglyphic influence, such as a glyph for a man that was apparently not read alphabetically:36 The first of these (h1) is a figure of celebration [Gardiner A28], whereas the second (h2) is either that of a child [Gardiner A17] or of dancing [Gardiner A32]. If the latter, h1 and h2 may be graphic variants (such as two hieroglyphs both used to write the Canaanite word hillul "jubilation") rather than different consonants.

Hieroglyphs representing, reading left to right, celebration, a child, and dancing. The first appears to be the prototype for h1, while the latter two have been suggested as the prototype for h2.

Brian Colless has published a translation of the text, in which some of the signs are treated as logograms (representing a whole word, not just a single consonant) or rebuses:

[Vertical] mšt r h ʿnt ygš ʾl [Vertical] Excellent banquet (mšt r[ʾš]) of the celebration (h[illul]) of ʿAnat (ʿnt). [It] will provide (ygš) ʾEl (ʾl) [Horizontal] rb wn mn h ngṯ h ʾ p mẖ r [Horizontal] plenty (rb) of wine (wn) [and] victuals (mn) for the celebration (h[illul]). We will sacrifice (ngṯ) to her (h) an ox (ʾ‍[lp]) and (p) a prime fatling (mẖ r[ʾš])."

Here, aleph, whose glyph depicts the head of an ox, is a logogram used to represent the word "ox" (*ʾalp), he, whose glyph depicts a man in celebration, is a logogram for the words "celebration" (*hillul) and "she/her" (hiʾ‎‍), and resh, whose glyph depicts a man's head, is a logogram for the word "utmost/greatest" (*raʾš). This interpretation fits into the pattern in some of the surrounding Egyptian inscriptions, with celebrations for the goddess Hathor involving inebriation.37

Other possible inscriptions

Archaeological excavations at the site of Umm el-Marra have uncovered four inscribed clay cylinders dating to ca. 2300 BC whose incisions have been hypothesized to be Early Alphabetic Semitic writing, which would make them the oldest such examples.3839

In 2009, Stephanie Dalley published several tablets from the Schøyen Collection dating to the times of the First Sealand dynasty, four of which have been identified as examples of Early Alphabetic inscriptions.40 Other probable examples of Early Alphabetic inscriptions include an ostracon from a tomb in western Thebes and a inscribed sherd from Lachish, both dating to the 15th century BC.414243

In 2010, Stefan Wimmer published an inscription discovered at Timna Valley which he also identified as written in proto-Sinaitic writing, although he also noted that its authenticity is not certain.44

Table of Symbols

Main article: History of the alphabet § Letter names and order

Below is a table synoptically showing selected Proto-Sinaitic signs and the proposed correspondences with Phoenician letters and Egyptian hieroglyphs. A full repertoire of the currently known letterforms can be found on pages 8 and 9 here: https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19299-revisiting-proto-sinaitic.pdf. Also shown are the reconstructed sound values and names.45

HieroglyphSerabit El-Khadim464748Wadi El-Hol49Timna5051IPA valueReconstructed namePhoenician
𓃾5253		—/ʔ/ʾalp "ox"5455𐤀
𓉐5657		——/b/bayt "house"58𐤁
𓉔59		——
𓌙6061		——/g/gaml "throw-stick"62𐤂
𓉿63		——/d/dalt "door"64𐤃
𓆟65 or
𓆡66		67——dag "fish"68
𓀠6970		——/h/haw "man calling"71/ hll "jubilate"72𐤄
𓀁73		——
𓌉74		?—/w/waw "hook"75𐤅
𓐅76 or
𓂃77		—/z/ or /ð/zayn "weapon"78 or ḏayp "eyebrow"79𐤆80
𓉗8182 or
𓉿8384		——/ħ/ḥaṣir "mansion"85𐤇86
𓎛878889		/x/ḫayt "thread"90
𓄤91		92——/tˤ/ṭab "good"93𐤈
𓂝9495		 —/j/yad "hand"96𐤉
𓂧9798		—/k/kap "palm"99100𐤊
𓍢101 or
𓋿102		 ?/l/lamd "goad"103104𐤋
𓈖105106		/m/maym "water"107𐤌
𓆓108109		—/n/naḥš "snake"110111𐤍
𓊽112		———/s/samk "support"113114𐤎
𓁹115116		/ʕ/ʿayn "eye"117118𐤏119
𓂋120		121122——/p/pay "mouth"123𐤐
𓂏?124
𓇳		——
𓊋125		126—piʾt "corner"127
𓇑128 or
𓇉129		130——/sˤ/ṣad "plant"131𐤑

𓃻132133

——/kˤ/ or /q/qup "monkey"134135𐤒
𓎗136		———qaw "cord, line"137
𓁶138139 or
𓂉140		/r/raʾš "head"141142𐤓
𓇴143		——144/ʃ/šamš "sun"145146𐤔147
148—149
150151——
𓌔152 or
𓐮?153		154/155—/t͡θ/ṯad "breast"156157
𓏴?158		—/t/taw "mark"159160161𐤕

See also

Bibliography

Primary sources

Secondary sources

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Proto-Sinaitic script. Wadi el-Hol

References

  1. Simons 2011, p. 16: "The proto-Sinaitic corpus consists of approximately forty inscriptions and fragments, the vast majority of which were found at Serabit el-Khadim" - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  2. LeBlanc, Paul D. (2017). Deciphering the Proto-Sinaitic Script: Making Sense of the Wadi el-Hol and Serabit el-Khadim Early Alphabetic Inscriptions. Subclass Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-9952844-0-1. Its importance lies in the fact that proto-Sinaitic represents our alphabet's earliest developmental period. So far, only two major discoveries of these inscriptions have been made. The first batch came to light in 1904-1905, in the Sinai, when Hilda and Flinders Petrie discovered what are now referred to as the Serabit el-Khadim inscriptions. The second group was discovered by John and Deborah Darnell in as recently as the 1990s, in Middle Egypt, and is known as the pair of Wadi el-Hol inscriptions. 978-0-9952844-0-1 ↩

  3. Woodard, Roger D. (2008). The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia. Cambridge University Press. pp. 104–105. ISBN 978-1-139-46934-0. The problem of the Proto-Canaanite inscriptions is directly linked with that of the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions. The latter are a group of inscriptions, numbering about thirty, discovered near Egyptian turquoise mines in the Sinai, dated variously to the eighteenth or fifteenth centuries BC, which have been only partially deciphered but which seem to represent a form of early West Semitic (for a recent overview with bibliography, see Pardee 1997b). 978-1-139-46934-0 ↩

  4. Golden, Jonathan M. (2009). Ancient Canaan and Israel: An Introduction. OUP USA. pp. 243–244. ISBN 978-0-19-537985-3. By the beginning of the second millennium BCE (the late Middle Bronze Age in Canaan), the scribes of Ugarit began to use a new script based on twenty-seven cuneiform characters. The southern Canaanites also developed new scripts of their own, two variations in fact-Proto-Sinaitic and Proto-Canaanite-both of which were also based upon the use of acronyms (Albright 1966; Cross 1967; Naveh 1982). Unfortunately, only a few examples of each have been recovered to date, and the ones that do exist are mostly incomplete and therefore difficult to decipher. As a result, some fundamental questions regarding the time of the first Proto-Canaanite scripts and the origins of the alphabet remain unanswered... Proto-Sinaitic... Today archaeologists know of some thirty to forty Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions that have been found on statuettes and stelae and carved into the rock faces around Serabit el-Khadim... 978-0-19-537985-3 ↩

  5. Garfinkel, Yosef; Golub, Mitka R.; Misgav, Haggai; Ganor, Saar (May 2015). "The ʾIšbaʿal Inscription from Khirbet Qeiyafa". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 373 (373): 217–233. doi:10.5615/bullamerschoorie.373.0217. JSTOR 10.5615/bullamerschoorie.373.0217. S2CID 164971133. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩

  6. Rollston, C. (2020). The Emergence of Alphabetic Scripts. In R. Hasselbach-Andee (Ed.), A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages (1st ed., pp. 65–81). Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781119193814.ch4 /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩

  7. "Sinaitic inscriptions | ancient writing". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2019-08-21. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sinaitic-inscriptions ↩

  8. The Development of the Greek Alphabet within the Chronology of the ANE (2009), Quote: "Naveh gives four major reasons why it is universally agreed that the Greek alphabet was developed from an early Phoenician alphabet. According to Herodutous "the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus... brought into Hellas the alphabet, which had hitherto been unknown, as I think, to the Greeks." The Greek Letters, alpha, beta, gimmel have no meaning in Greek but the meaning of most of their Semitic equivalents is known. For example, 'aleph' means 'ox', 'bet' means 'house' and 'gimmel' means 'throw stick'. Early Greek letters are very similar and sometimes identical to the West Semitic letters. The letter sequence between the Semitic and Greek alphabets is identical. (Naveh 1982)" http://www.arcalog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Near-Eastern-Chronology-and-the-development-of-the-Greek-Alphabet.pdf ↩

  9. John F. Healey, The Early Alphabet University of California Press, 1990, ISBN 978-0-520-07309-8, p. 18. /wiki/ISBN_(identifier) ↩

  10. Albright 1966. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  11. Simons 2011, p. 24. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  12. Coulmas (1989) p. 141. ↩

  13. "Earliest Known Hebrew Text in Proto-Canaanite Script Discovered in Area Where 'David Slew Goliath'". Science Daily. November 3, 2008. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081103091035.htm ↩

  14. "Most ancient Hebrew biblical inscription deciphered". University of Haifa. January 10, 2010. Archived from the original on October 5, 2011. Retrieved November 5, 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20111005020653/http://newmedia-eng.haifa.ac.il/?p=2043 ↩

  15. Naveh, Joseph (1987), "Proto-Canaanite, Archaic Greek, and the Script of the Aramaic Text on the Tell Fakhariyah Statue", in Miller; et al. (eds.), Ancient Israelite Religion, ISBN 0-8006-0831-3. 0-8006-0831-3 ↩

  16. Weill, R. (1904). Recueil des inscriptions égyptiennes du Sinaī: bibliographie, texte, traduction et commentaire, précédé de la géographie des établissements égyptiens de la péninsule (in French). Société nouvelle de librairie et d'édition. p. 154. Retrieved 2023-08-08. https://archive.org/details/Weill_1904/page/n84/mode/1up ↩

  17. Gardiner 1916, p. 1-16. - Gardiner, Alan H. (1916). "The Egyptian Origin of the Semitic Alphabet". The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. 3 (1). Egypt Exploration Society: 1–16. doi:10.2307/3853586. ISSN 0307-5133. JSTOR 3853586. Retrieved 2023-08-13. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3853586 ↩

  18. Simons 2011, p. 24; quote: "The two latest discoveries, those found in the Wadi el-Hol, north of Luxor, in Egypt's western desert, can be dated with rather more certainty than the others and offer compelling evidence that the early date [1850 BC] is the more likely of the two" ↩

  19. Goldwasser, Orly (Mar–Apr 2010). "How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs". Biblical Archaeology Review. 36 (1). Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society. ISSN 0098-9444. Archived from the original on 30 June 2016. Retrieved 6 Nov 2011. /wiki/Orly_Goldwasser ↩

  20. Petrie & Currelly 1906. - Petrie, Flinders; Currelly, Charles Trick (1906). Researches in Sinai. ATLA monograph preservation program. John Murray. ISBN 978-0-7905-2421-4. Retrieved 2023-08-13. https://archive.org/details/researchesinsina00petruoft/page/130/mode/2up?view=theater ↩

  21. Gardiner 1916, p. 1-16. - Gardiner, Alan H. (1916). "The Egyptian Origin of the Semitic Alphabet". The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. 3 (1). Egypt Exploration Society: 1–16. doi:10.2307/3853586. ISSN 0307-5133. JSTOR 3853586. Retrieved 2023-08-13. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3853586 ↩

  22. Joseph Naveh; Solomon Asher Birnbaum; David Diringer; Zvi Hermann Federbush; Jonathan Shunary; Jacob Maimon (2007), "ALPHABET, HEBREW", Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 1 (2nd ed.), Gale, pp. 689–728, ISBN 978-0-02-865929-9 978-0-02-865929-9 ↩

  23. Albright 1966. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  24. John F. Healey, The Early Alphabet University of California Press, 1990, ISBN 978-0-520-07309-8, p. 18. /wiki/ISBN_(identifier) ↩

  25. Goldwasser, Orly (Mar–Apr 2010). "How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs". Biblical Archaeology Review. 36 (1). Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society. ISSN 0098-9444. Archived from the original on 30 June 2016. Retrieved 6 Nov 2011. /wiki/Orly_Goldwasser ↩

  26. This is in marked contrast to the history of adoption of the Phoenician alphabet in the Iron Age (where ʾālep gave rise to the Greek letter aleph, i.e. the Semitic term for "ox" was left untranslated and adopted as simply the name of the letter). ↩

  27. Picker, Werner (2007). Origin and development of the Libyco-Berber. Köln: Rüdiger Koppel Verlag. ISBN 978-3-89645-394-5. Retrieved 2022-04-16. 978-3-89645-394-5 ↩

  28. Goldwasser, Orly (Mar–Apr 2010). "How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs". Biblical Archaeology Review. 36 (1). Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society. ISSN 0098-9444. Archived from the original on 30 June 2016. Retrieved 6 Nov 2011. /wiki/Orly_Goldwasser ↩

  29. "The proto-Sinaitic corpus consists of approximately forty inscriptions and fragments, the vast majority of which were found at Serabit el-Khadim" (Simons 2011:16). ↩

  30. Wilson-Wright, Aren Max. “Sinai 357: A Northwest Semitic Votive Inscription to Teššob.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 136, no. 2, 2016, pp. 247–63 doi:10.7817/jameroriesoci.136.2.247 /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩

  31. Goldwasser (2010): "The alphabet was invented in this way by Canaanites at Serabit in the Middle Bronze Age, in the middle of the 19th century B.C.E., probably during the reign of Amenemhet III of the XIIth Dynasty." - Goldwasser, Orly (Mar–Apr 2010). "How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs". Biblical Archaeology Review. 36 (1). Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society. ISSN 0098-9444. Archived from the original on 30 June 2016. Retrieved 6 Nov 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20160630075033/http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=02&ArticleID=06 ↩

  32. Parker, Hope, "The Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions at Serabit El-Khadim in their archaeological context : date and function", Ägypten und Levante/Egypt and the Levant 32, pp. 269-311, 2022 JSTOR 27221505 /wiki/JSTOR_(identifier) ↩

  33. "Discovery of Egyptian Inscriptions Indicates an Earlier Date for Origin of the Alphabet". archive.nytimes.com. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/111499sci-alphabet-origin.html ↩

  34. Baker, Dorie (13 December 1999). "Finding sheds new light on the alphabet's origins". Yale Bulletin and Calendar. http://archives.news.yale.edu/v28.n16/story4.html ↩

  35. Goldwasser, Orly (Mar–Apr 2010). "How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs". Biblical Archaeology Review. 36 (1). Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society. ISSN 0098-9444. Archived from the original on 30 June 2016. Retrieved 6 Nov 2011. /wiki/Orly_Goldwasser ↩

  36. Goldwasser, Orly (Mar–Apr 2010). "How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs". Biblical Archaeology Review. 36 (1). Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society. ISSN 0098-9444. Archived from the original on 30 June 2016. Retrieved 6 Nov 2011. /wiki/Orly_Goldwasser ↩

  37. Colless (2010), p. 91. Note: The 'y' appears in the Colless article p. 95, but not in the Wikimedia Commons trace image inscr1.jpg - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  38. Schwartz, Glenn M. (2021). "Non-cuneiform writing at third-millennium Umm El-Marra, Syria: evidence of an Early Alphabetic tradition?". Pasiphae. XV (15). Fabrizio Serra: 255–266. doi:10.19272/202133301018. http://www.libraweb.net/articoli3.php?chiave=202133301&rivista=333&articolo=202133301018 ↩

  39. Richey, Madadh (2023). "Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Origins of the Alphabet". Maarav. 27 (1–2): 1–38. doi:10.1086/727576. ISSN 0149-5712. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩

  40. Dalley, Stephanie (2009). Babylonian Tablets from the First Sealand Dynasty in the Schøyen Collection. CDL Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-934309-08-7. 978-1-934309-08-7 ↩

  41. Haring, Ben (2015). "Halaḥam on an Ostracon of the Early New Kingdom?". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 74 (2): 189–196. doi:10.1086/682330. ISSN 0022-2968. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩

  42. Fischer-Elfert, Hans-W.; Krebernik, Manfred (2016). "Zu den Buchstabennamen auf dem Halaḥam-Ostrakon aus TT 99 (Grab des Sennefri)". Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde (in German). 143 (2): 169–176. doi:10.1515/zaes-2016-0011. ISSN 2196-713X. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:gbv:27-dbt-20221127-171517-008 ↩

  43. Höflmayer, Felix; Misgav, Haggai; Webster, Lyndelle; Streit, Katharina (2021). "Early alphabetic writing in the ancient Near East: the 'missing link' from Tel Lachish". Antiquity. 95 (381): 705–719. doi:10.15184/aqy.2020.157. ISSN 0003-598X. https://doi.org/10.15184%2Faqy.2020.157 ↩

  44. Wimmer, Stefan Jakob (2010-01-01). "A Proto-Sinaitic Inscription in Timna/Israel: New Evidence on the Emergence of the Alphabet". Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections. 2 (2). doi:10.2458/azu_jaei_v02i2_wimmer. ISSN 1944-2815. https://www.academia.edu/40029675 ↩

  45. See also: Simons (2011), Figure Three: "Chart of all early proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 39), Figure Four: "Representative selection of later proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to early proto-Canaanite and proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 40). See Also: A comparison of glyphs from western ("Proto-Canaanite", Byblos) and southern scripts along with the reconstructed "Linear Ugaritic" (Lundin 1987) is found in Manfried Dietrich and Oswald Loretz, Die Keilalphabete: die phönizisch-kanaanäischen und altarabischen Alphabete in Ugarit, Ugarit-Verlag, 1988, p. 102, reprinted in Wilfred G. E. Watson, Nicolas Wyatt (eds.), Handbook of Ugaritic Studies (1999), p. 86. https://books.google.com/books?id=0Z2Jo01iq1YC&pg=PA86 ↩

  46. Cross, F. M. (1980) Newly Found Inscriptions in Old Canaanite and Early Phoenician Scripts. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 238, 1–20. doi:10.2307/1356511 /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩

  47. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  48. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  49. Colless 2010. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  50. Wimmer, Stefan Jakob (2010-01-01). "A Proto-Sinaitic Inscription in Timna/Israel: New Evidence on the Emergence of the Alphabet". Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections. 2 (2). doi:10.2458/azu_jaei_v02i2_wimmer. ISSN 1944-2815. https://www.academia.edu/40029675 ↩

  51. Colless 2010. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  52. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  53. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  54. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  55. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  56. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  57. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  58. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  59. Darnell, John Coleman; Lundberg, Marilyn J. "Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi el-Hôl: New Evidence for the Origin of the Alphabet from the Western Desert of Egypt". C. Dobbs-Allsopp, P.K. McCarter, M.J. Lundberg, and B. Zuckerman, Co-authors, with the Assistance of C. Manassa Darnell, in Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 59 (2005): 63-124. https://www.academia.edu/19066825 ↩

  60. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  61. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  62. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  63. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  64. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  65. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  66. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  67. 𓆛's name may be reconstructed as "dagg" (Ugaritic, Hebrew), "nūn" (Aramaic, Akkadian, Phoenician?), or "samk" (Arabic, Old South Arabian?). However, the development of Proto-Sinaitic in Sinai and Egypt makes it part of the Northwest Semitic Languages, where "dagg" and "nūn" were used. When both 𓉿 and 𓆛 are found within the same inscription, they are either thought to be the same allophone, or they are thought to be misinterpreted as 𓉗 or Samekh respectively.[citation needed] /wiki/Samekh ↩

  68. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  69. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  70. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  71. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  72. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  73. Darnell, John Coleman; Lundberg, Marilyn J. "Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi el-Hôl: New Evidence for the Origin of the Alphabet from the Western Desert of Egypt". C. Dobbs-Allsopp, P.K. McCarter, M.J. Lundberg, and B. Zuckerman, Co-authors, with the Assistance of C. Manassa Darnell, in Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 59 (2005): 63-124. https://www.academia.edu/19066825 ↩

  74. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  75. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  76. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  77. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  78. Wimmer, Stefan Jakob (2010-01-01). "A Proto-Sinaitic Inscription in Timna/Israel: New Evidence on the Emergence of the Alphabet". Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections. 2 (2). doi:10.2458/azu_jaei_v02i2_wimmer. ISSN 1944-2815. https://www.academia.edu/40029675 ↩

  79. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  80. Several sound mergers may have occurred by the time of the Phoenician language, including the merger of /ð/ into /z/, the merger of /x/ into /ħ/, the merger of /ɣ/ into /ʕ/, and the merger of /θ/ into /ʃ/.[citation needed] /wiki/Assimilation_(phonology) ↩

  81. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  82. Several sound mergers may have occurred by the time of the Phoenician language, including the merger of /ð/ into /z/, the merger of /x/ into /ħ/, the merger of /ɣ/ into /ʕ/, and the merger of /θ/ into /ʃ/.[citation needed] /wiki/Assimilation_(phonology) ↩

  83. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  84. 𓆛's name may be reconstructed as "dagg" (Ugaritic, Hebrew), "nūn" (Aramaic, Akkadian, Phoenician?), or "samk" (Arabic, Old South Arabian?). However, the development of Proto-Sinaitic in Sinai and Egypt makes it part of the Northwest Semitic Languages, where "dagg" and "nūn" were used. When both 𓉿 and 𓆛 are found within the same inscription, they are either thought to be the same allophone, or they are thought to be misinterpreted as 𓉗 or Samekh respectively.[citation needed] /wiki/Samekh ↩

  85. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  86. Several sound mergers may have occurred by the time of the Phoenician language, including the merger of /ð/ into /z/, the merger of /x/ into /ħ/, the merger of /ɣ/ into /ʕ/, and the merger of /θ/ into /ʃ/.[citation needed] /wiki/Assimilation_(phonology) ↩

  87. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  88. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  89. Several sound mergers may have occurred by the time of the Phoenician language, including the merger of /ð/ into /z/, the merger of /x/ into /ħ/, the merger of /ɣ/ into /ʕ/, and the merger of /θ/ into /ʃ/.[citation needed] /wiki/Assimilation_(phonology) ↩

  90. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  91. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  92. The Canaanites seem to have replaced the 𓄤 glyph with one resembling a spinning wheel (ṭayt) 𓊖. ↩

  93. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  94. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  95. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  96. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  97. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  98. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  99. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  100. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  101. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  102. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  103. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  104. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  105. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  106. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  107. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  108. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  109. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  110. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  111. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  112. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  113. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  114. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  115. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  116. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  117. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  118. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  119. Several sound mergers may have occurred by the time of the Phoenician language, including the merger of /ð/ into /z/, the merger of /x/ into /ħ/, the merger of /ɣ/ into /ʕ/, and the merger of /θ/ into /ʃ/.[citation needed] /wiki/Assimilation_(phonology) ↩

  120. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  121. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  122. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  123. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  124. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  125. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  126. Darnell, John Coleman; Lundberg, Marilyn J. "Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi el-Hôl: New Evidence for the Origin of the Alphabet from the Western Desert of Egypt". C. Dobbs-Allsopp, P.K. McCarter, M.J. Lundberg, and B. Zuckerman, Co-authors, with the Assistance of C. Manassa Darnell, in Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 59 (2005): 63-124. https://www.academia.edu/19066825 ↩

  127. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  128. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  129. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  130. Albright 1966, p. 21, fig. 5. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  131. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  132. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  133. Pandey, Anshuman (30 July 2019). "Revisiting the Encoding of Proto Sinaitic in Unicode" (PDF). Unicode.org. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19299-revisiting-proto-sinaitic.pdf ↩

  134. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  135. Pandey, Anshuman (30 July 2019). "Revisiting the Encoding of Proto Sinaitic in Unicode" (PDF). Unicode.org. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19299-revisiting-proto-sinaitic.pdf ↩

  136. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  137. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  138. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  139. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  140. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  141. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  142. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  143. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  144. Colless 2010, p. 94, fig. 2. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  145. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  146. Darnell, John Coleman; Lundberg, Marilyn J. "Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi el-Hôl: New Evidence for the Origin of the Alphabet from the Western Desert of Egypt". C. Dobbs-Allsopp, P.K. McCarter, M.J. Lundberg, and B. Zuckerman, Co-authors, with the Assistance of C. Manassa Darnell, in Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 59 (2005): 63-124. https://www.academia.edu/19066825 ↩

  147. Several sound mergers may have occurred by the time of the Phoenician language, including the merger of /ð/ into /z/, the merger of /x/ into /ħ/, the merger of /ɣ/ into /ʕ/, and the merger of /θ/ into /ʃ/.[citation needed] /wiki/Assimilation_(phonology) ↩

  148. Colless 2010, p. 90. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  149. Wimmer, Stefan Jakob (2010-01-01). "A Proto-Sinaitic Inscription in Timna/Israel: New Evidence on the Emergence of the Alphabet". Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections. 2 (2). doi:10.2458/azu_jaei_v02i2_wimmer. ISSN 1944-2815. https://www.academia.edu/40029675 ↩

  150. Wilson-Wright, Aren Max (2016). "Sinai 357: A Northwest Semitic Votive Inscription to Teššob". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 136 (2): 247–263. doi:10.7817/jameroriesoci.136.2.247. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 10.7817/jameroriesoci.136.2.247. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7817/jameroriesoci.136.2.247 ↩

  151. Colless 2010, p. 90. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  152. Several sound mergers may have occurred by the time of the Phoenician language, including the merger of /ð/ into /z/, the merger of /x/ into /ħ/, the merger of /ɣ/ into /ʕ/, and the merger of /θ/ into /ʃ/.[citation needed] /wiki/Assimilation_(phonology) ↩

  153. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  154. Wilson-Wright, Aren Max (2016). "Sinai 357: A Northwest Semitic Votive Inscription to Teššob". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 136 (2): 247–263. doi:10.7817/jameroriesoci.136.2.247. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 10.7817/jameroriesoci.136.2.247. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7817/jameroriesoci.136.2.247 ↩

  155. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  156. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  157. There is no hieroglyph for Waw/hook, and there are no strong graphical matches for hieroglyphs: Ziqq/fetter (𓍿), Taw/mark (𓏴), and Ṯad/breasts (𓂑𓂑). Colless suggests these letters may have derived independently outside Egypt.[53] Others have interpreted Ziqq, Waw, and Ṯad as coming from reinterpreted hieroglyphs, a copper ingot (𓈔),[42] a mace (𓌉),[11] and Aa32 (𓐮),[43] respectively. ↩

  158. Simons 2011, p. 38, fig. 2. - Simons, Frank (2011). "Proto-Sinaitic – Progenitor of the Alphabet" (PDF). Rosetta. 9: 16–40. http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue_09/simons_alphabet.pdf ↩

  159. Colless 2010, p. 96, fig. 5. - Colless, Brian E (2010). "Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi Arabah" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 8: 75–96. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32621526.pdf ↩

  160. Albright 1966, fig. 1. - Albright, W.F. (1966). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard theological studies. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-89130-221-6. https://archive.org/details/AlbrightTheProtoSinaiticInscriptionsAndTheirDecipherment1969 ↩

  161. There is no hieroglyph for Waw/hook, and there are no strong graphical matches for hieroglyphs: Ziqq/fetter (𓍿), Taw/mark (𓏴), and Ṯad/breasts (𓂑𓂑). Colless suggests these letters may have derived independently outside Egypt.[53] Others have interpreted Ziqq, Waw, and Ṯad as coming from reinterpreted hieroglyphs, a copper ingot (𓈔),[42] a mace (𓌉),[11] and Aa32 (𓐮),[43] respectively. ↩