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Early Alphabetic Inscriptions (2nd mill. BCE)

This page features material related to Early Alphabetic Inscriptions, most of which date to the second millennium BCE. In progress.

Corpus of Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from Outside Canaan

  • Umm el-Marra clay cylinders (four cylinders from northern Syria, ca. 2300 BCE)
  • Lahun Heddle Jack (wooden loom jack from Lahun in the area of Faiyum; C14 dated to ca. 2140-1940 BCE)
  • Sealand Dynasty texts
  • Wadi el-Hol
  • Serabit el-Khadim
  • Ostracon TT99 with halaḥam abecedary (Thebes, early 15th cent. BCE)
  • Tell Deir ‘Alla clay tablets (three short texts inscribed in clay, ca. 1200 BCE)

Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from Canaan

The Bronze Age Southern Levant contains a dearth of texts compared to Egypt, Mesopotamia, or the Northern Levant. Current estimates include just over 60 cuneiform texts in Sumerian, Akkadian, and West Semitic languages, including three in alphabetic cuneiform and approximately 17 Proto-Canaanite exemplars. A representative list of the Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Southern Levant follows:

  • Lachish Ivory Lice Comb (ca. 1700 BCE?)
  • Tell el-‘Ajjul Spouted Cup (ca. 1600-1300 BCE)
  • Gezer Potsherd (ca. 1500 BCE?)
  • Lachish Ostracon with Early Alphabetic Inscription (15th cent. BCE)
    • See ed. pr., Höflmayer et al. 2021, here. See BAS article here.
  • Lachish Ewer (second half of 13th cent. BCE)
  • ‘Izbet Ṣarṭah abecedary (12-11th cent. BCE)
  • Tel Beth-Shemesh Ostracon (1150-1100 BCE)
    • See McCarter, Bunimovitz, and Lederman 2011 here.
  • Jerubba’al Inscription from Khirbet al-Ra’i (late twelfth or early eleventh century BCE; discovered 2019)
    • See Rollston, Garfinkel, Keimer, Davis, and Ganor 2021 here.
  • Tel Zayit abecedary (11th-10th cent. BCE)

Bibliography

  • Hamilton, Gordon. 2010. “From the Seal of a Seer to an Inscribed Game Board: A Catalogue of Eleven Early Alphabetic Inscriptions Recently Discovered in Egypt and Palestine.” Available here.
  • McCarter, P. Kyle. 2011. “An Archaic Ba’l Inscription from Tel Beth-Shemesh,” Tel Aviv 38: 35-49. See here.
  • Richey, Madadh. 2023. “Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Origins of the Alphabet,” Maarav 27, no. 1-2: 1-38.
  • Others forthcoming.