DEIR `ALLA INSCRIPTIONS
The Sukkot Consonantary

   TABLET 1440

This is the best-preserved  of a number of small tablets inscribed with inscrutable writing, which were found in the course of excavations at the ruin-mound (Tell) Deir `Alla in Jordan. Several attempts have been made to decipher the texts, on the assumption that it is an unusual form of the early alphabet, and also that the language would be West Semitic. I have been wrestling with them since they were first published, and I have tried a plethora of possibilities in six decades of searching, since 1964.  My latest attempt (May 2024) seems promising (Eureka!?), and I will show my proposed reading of 1440 at the outset, but some details may be changed as we go along.
  The three letters at the top (actually on the side of the tablet, bottom left corner) are assumed to be at the end of the text; and they are presumed to run from right to left ("sinistrograde"), as do the characters in the other two lines, commencing in the top right corner (contrary to other published opinions).
However, my tentative transcription and trial translation will run from left to right .

   (1) L N R R | N T. ` | L N T N ? | T H L
  (2) | L N Sh ' W | N L N S K  L | H. G M | M N R W
  (3) L R B
  For (L) prime (R) cultivation (NR) of a plantation (NT.`), to give (LNTN) it a boost (THL),
  to yield (LNSh') wine (WN) for pouring (LNSK) for the festivals (LH.GM), in copious (R) measure (MN),
  and (W) aplenty (LRB)
    Is this a prayer (or a magic spell, or a viticultural formula) for promoting good growth and abundant harvest in a vineyard?
    The document was found in a room that is considered to be a sanctuary.
    Regarding the identity of Deir `Alla, its Arabic name has been plausibly equated with Hebraic Tar`alah, and the Jerusalem Talmud (Shb`t 9.2)  states that Tar`alah was formerly Sukkot ("booths"), and the chief archaeologist of Tell Deir `Alla suggested that huts and tents were positioned around the sanctuary (H. J. Franken 1992, 168-169).
    Besides Succoth, Penuel has been offered as a possible identification for the site, as noted by Michel de Vreeze, though he adds that no consensus has emerged for either. But the Bible and Talmud favour Sukkot.

   If this place was Sukkot, then it was possibly a market town, and when Jacob (Ya`qob) built a "house" there (Genesis 33:17) he was perhaps setting up a shop, a trade-centre; and then he went and pitched his tent at Shekem (33:18-20), and engaged in trading there (34:20-21); subsequently, his son Joseph, as Vizier in Egypt, invited his brothers to enter the land of Egypt and trade there (42:34); eventually Jacob established an international commercial corporation at Avaris, in the Nile Delta; the archaeological evidence from the site shows that wine was an important commodity in their transactions. Jacob's grandsons Epraim and Menasshe became the 14th Dynasty of Egypt.
https://sites.google.com/view/collesseum/gebel-tingar-statue
  Photographs and drawings of the inscribed tablets are available here:
https://www.academia.edu/41880782/THE_LATE_BRONZE_DEIR_ALLA_TABLETS_A_RENEWED_ATTEMPT_TOWARDS_THEIR_TRANSLATION_AND_INTERPRETATION
The relevant pages for Figures 2-9 are 536-542 ( but your printer will number them as 55-61, and it will need 7 sheets of paper)

   This decipherment attempt of Michel de Vreeze, by his own admission, has not succeeded.  I suggest that its failure is due to these factors:
  (1) Reliance on the many faulty identifications of the letters of the proto-alphabet, in Gordon Hamilton's The origins of the West Semitic alphabet (2006).
  Compare my alternative table of signs in:
http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2007/10/gordon-hamiltons-early-alphabet-thesis.html
https://www.academia.edu/12894458/The_origin_of_the_alphabet
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xbY5l60NZR4/SLvwKH39VuI/AAAAAAAAAKI/3CiacGxWkek/s1600-h/ABT+EVN+TBL.jpg
    (2) Assuming that the lines of writing on the tablets run from left to right, but this is not the usual direction for West Semitic writing, although dextrograde examples are found;  the results  he obtained by reading in this direction hardly make sense, while my sinstrograde interpretation of the second line of this tablet (1440) produces plausible  words for wine, pour, festival, and plenty.
    (3) Failure to consult a relevant frequency table of  West Semitic proto-alphabetic consonants; he assigns sounds to signs by comparing their shapes with presumed originals, with a minimum of success.
  In deciphering an inscription in an obscure script, a table of frequency needs to be employed, ranking the characters in the order of their relative frequency.  For example, I did this when studying the Izbet Sartah ostracon, which came from Ebenezer in the land west of the Jordan River, ancient Israel.
https://sites.google.com/view/collesseum/abgadary
    In the case of this  text (1440), since it was found in the Jordan Valley, it is probably a West Semitic dialect (and a Hebraic lexicon can be consulted as a basic guide).
    It so happens that a readable document from a later time has been discovered on the same site, "The account of Balaam son of Beor". This is written in a version of the Phoenician alphabet, and although it is badly damaged, its language can be determined; it is West Semitic. Accordingly, I have prepared a table of consonant frequency for this language:
   L1 M2 N3 R4 Y5 B6 W7 'A8 Sh9 T10 H11 H.12 K13 `O14 Q15 D16 P17 S18 Z19 S.20 G21 T.22
Note that there is uncertainty about identifying each of the letters in the tablets (different scribes have their own style), and an accurate table of their frequency is not possible at this initial stage of the investigation, but the comparative exercise will still be reasonably valid, as attested in the examination of this Tablet 1440.

    From this point onwards we need a copy of the tablet at hand, for ready reference
    (Plate XL, p. 536, courtesy of de Vreeze, and van der Kooij).
    Also  a printout of my chart of Alphabet Evolution:
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xbY5l60NZR4/SLvwKH39VuI/AAAAAAAAAKI/3CiacGxWkek/s1600-h/ABT+EVN+TBL.jpg

    Looking at the tablet (1440) how can we tell which line is at the top?
    A helpful clue is lurking in the middle of one of the lines: -|-|-|
  This electricity pole has to stand upright, and that is how it is in the photograph (as positioned here, but the inscription was first published in an inverted stance).
   /S/ (MdV S) We can also take this as our first identification, though this is its only occurrence in the collection; it is obviously the Samek of the Phoenician alphabet, which is S18 on the frequency table.
  My feeling is that the text begins in the top right corner.
  Attention! Keep constantly in mind that the only person who really knew the meaning of this inscription was the person who wrote it, but sometimes scribal errors were made in the process, and this may complicate our search for the intended meaning.
    [1]  (Right > Left) L N R R "For prime cultivation"
    /L/  (MdV H) An inverted V: if it had the stance of V, it could be the ox-head, Alep ('A8), but this sign is the most frequent (first place, shared with the letter that occurs twice in this box). The most frequent letter on the table is 1L , and this seems to suit this character: on the chart we see that the letter Lamed was a crook, but its bend became angular, and on the Greece column Lambda is an acute angle /\ . However, notice that in this instance and with most of the other examples of L, the left arm is straight up and down, absolutely vertical, whereas the right arm is diagonal (|\), perhaps showing that the letter has developed from a crook.
  /N/ (MdV û) This is a snake, but instead of a cobra (the origin of N) it is a viper with a dot for a head (__.). In this setting it is always vertical, to save space, as with other horizontal letters, such as M. The letter N is  3 on the table, and 4 in these tablets.
  /R/ (MdV `Ayin) The supposition that this arc with a dot is an eye with a pupil is certainly tempting, but here we have two of them side by side producing a gargling sound. This form was used for D in a Dedanite alphabet, and reading DDN here caused a paralysis in my progress to a solution. But the chart shows that a vertical arc can represent R in ancient Arabia, and here a dot has been added for the left eye. This letter shares first place with L, and on the table R is 4, but D is 16 (!) and `Ayin is 14 (!).
  [2] N T. (`) "of a plantation"
  The vertical lines that form eight boxes, are generally considered to be separating the words in the text, but there are some seeming anomalies in the set of tablets, and at this stage it remains to be seen whether they can function as phonetic letters..
  /N/ (MdV L) Here the vertical stroke for N has a dot at the end , and this was not so in the first box, where the proposed N was shorter and without a dot. My working hypothesis is that this sign will always be N, whatever its length, and with or without a dot at the bottom. Note that MdV separates them as L with the dot, and Û without the dot. It is indeed possible that the characters ! and | have different references; the plain stroke might represent H, for example
  /T./ (MdV R?) This puzzling character can be recognized if we think of Theta, and remember Tet (in the Late Bronze Age) as a cross inside a circle. It occurs only once in this corpus, and Tet is last (22) on the table.
  /`Ayin/ (MdV ?) A trio of dots as the points of an invisible triangle is another hapax (a oncer) and the best of the few choices in the Nun Tet verb inventory is `Ayin, nt.`, "plant". As already stated, `Ayin holds place 14, and it is possible that other tablets have different ways of expressing it, such as a single dot representing an eye,, and that may also be what we are seeing here, with the other two dots serving a different purpose, such as indicating duplication; but if this produces a double `Ayin, we are faced with the same dilemma that we strove to avoid in section 1 .
  [3] L N T (N) "to give"
  /T/ (MdV T) This cross (+) has to be Taw, as it was in the beginning and is now. Some of the tablets prefer the multiplication sign to the plus-sign, and I assume that this is not significant. Taw is 10 on the table, and 7th here.
  ( )  (MdV ?)  If the vertical stroke is N, it produces the root ntn, "give". But it has three dots below it (an inversion of the pattern in the preceding box). It might be Q (15) or S.adey (20), giving ntq or nts., both basically meaning "detach". However, if one of the dots denotes `Ayin, other possibilities will need to be considered (see below, RECAPITULATION).
  [4] T H L "a boost"
  /T/ This is a distorted + but it is presumably another Taw. The different shapes and stances we are seeing raise the possibility of syllabic writing.
  /H/ It is tempting to interpret this as K , as a simple variant of the /|\ standing next to the Samek in the second line, and thus produce TKL ("perfection" or "completion"); but THL (tehilla) would mean "praise", and hence "encouragement", "stimulation", "a boost". The character denoting /h/ originated in an exulting or praising human figure (>-E) either upright or upside down (standing on the hands), and that inverted form is presumably what we are looking at here. Nevertheless, a trident form of K was permissible, but always upright. There are 5 instances of this sign in the tablets, giving it 11th place, corresponding to 11H on the frequency table.
   /L/ This is part of the root THL, but the other six occurrences on this tablet seem to represent the preposition l ("to", "for", "of")
  [5] L N Sh ' "to yield"
  This is the commencement of the second line, lower right corner, with a (presumed) dividing line, possibly indicating that this is where the new line of text begins.
  /L/ Preposition, "to".
  /N/ This vertical stroke does not have an obvious dot, like the two on the L preceding it, but it will be identified as N for now.
  /Sh/ (MdV Sh/S) This is apparently the breast-sign, standing for Shin and Sin; indeed, Sin would fit admirably here, in the root ns', "raise", which is used for a vine bearing fruit, in Ezekiel 17:8. This letter has ten occurrences here, and is in 9th place; and Sh is 9 on the frequency table.
  /'Alep/ The "complete sign list" of MdV has no 'Alep at all, although this letter (the glottal stop) is 8 on the frequency table. The sign for this consonant is a vertical stroke followed by a dot; the dot is faint here on the photograph, but there are examples on Tablet 3291, and I suspect that they are the initial consonant of 1st person verbs (imperfect). With 10 instances in the complete set it takes 8th place, corresponding to 'Alep 8 on the table. Coincidentally, the 'Alep became a mere vertical stroke in the Syriac and Arabic alphabets. The dot may be a relic of the eye of the ox, like the eye-dot in the human-head sign, which was reduced to an arc with a dot.
  /W/ (MdV W)  --( is Waw, meaning a hook or a nail. On my alphabet-evolution chart its early form is --o, and the Phoenician alphabet has --( upright, with the arc at the top; but the Byblos syllabary (the Protosyllabary from which the Protoalphabet was devised) already had )- with the curve at the bottom, as here, but the stem is longer in this setting. W is 7 on the table, and this sign has 25 instances here (compared with 34 for L and R in first position). Waw occurs often as w, "and", and in this collection in a sequence WN, "wine"; and that combination is found here, but its components are separated by one of those presumed dividers. Nevertheless, taken with the possible reference to "pouring" in section 6 (and an occurrence of the same phenomenon in 1449), I will tentatively accept W|N as "wine", here and there; it could be WYN (as in Hebrew yayin).
  [6] (W)N L N S K L "wine to pour for"
  The second N in this cluster seems to be necessary for the root nsk, "pour', and on available photographs there is indeed a dot with a possible stroke above it; but if not, the dot is for doubling the Samek, to which the initial N has been assimilated (a peculiarity of this dialect?). Two other Pe - Nun verbs in this text (3 ntn, 5 ns') retain their N, though ntn (infinitive) can be ltt or lntn.
  /K/ (MdV K) /|\ is a typical form for K, though the 15 apparent instances give it 5th position, whereas K is 13 on the frequency table; but in Phoenician inscriptions K ranks as 5th, and 7th in Ugaritic texts.

   [7] H. G M "festivals"
  /H./ (MdV ?) This is Het, unrecognized by MdV, but it belongs with his set of signs that are classified wrongly as Q, and which includes some instances of Pe. The shape is roughly 8, and this example has internal details which indicate the origin of the letter Het: a house with two rooms and a rounded courtyard (h.az.ir); the letter in the proto-alphabet that most resembles the figure 8 is Sadey /ç ts/ universally misunderstood as Q (thought to represent a monkey). Its rating is about 10 here, with H. as  12 on the frequency table. It needs to be added (to the confusion!) that in the Proto-consonantary there was also a letter H (ooo< or oo< always upright), but this script fits the pattern of the Neo-consonantary, in which that sign was omitted.
  /G/  (MdV G) This is probably G (gaml, throwstick) although its angle is rounded, suggesting a crook, and thus L; but we have already recognized Lamed as the most frequently occurring letter in this inscription, even though its bend is angular rather than round! I find two examples in the set (also GN, "garden", in  3524) and that puts it among the infrequent letters, 17,  and it is G21 on the table; MdV proposes four instances, but this would still put it in the infrequency end of the continuum.
  /M/ (MdV M) This wavy line is obvious;y M, and its vertical space-saving stance is not anomalous; it has five strokes, but the following Mem has six parts, but five is the norm. The meagre total for such letters is  5, 11th place, contrasting with M2. The signs with only four limbs are classified as Shin/Sin (as in section 5 above), and their total gave Shin 9th place, agreeing with Sh9. But there are five cases of letters with only three constituents, and MdV accepts them as N, and this seems reasonable, representing a cobra, but apparently Nun is the viper in this setting, and both signs occur together in the three inscriptions they share (see, for example, the first section of 3291). This puzzle will be need to be worked out along the way.
  The word h.gm ("festivals") seems appropriate in this context. H.G also occurs in connection with WN ("wine") in an inscription on a bowl, relating to a celebration of the Divine Mother ('M).
http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2016/08/byblos-bowl-inscription.html

  [8] M N R W  "in copious measure and"
   This cluster of frequently occurring consonants offers a plethora of possibilities: W is probably the conjunction "and", linking to LRB in the next section; M or MN could be the preposition "from"; MNR suggests menorah, a source of light;  NR could hark back to the NR ("cultivation") of the first section; R might be a logogram for r'sh, "head", denoting "superlative", and this is how I have chosen to interpret it here, and also  in section 1; I would connect the MN and the RB with the wine, RB ("much, plenty") referring to the quantity, and MN to the quality. However, the root MN relates to counting, and its nouns are "portion" and "number"; therefore this may be an adverbial phrase of quantity, and my rendering of this is "in copious (R) measure (MN)", reinforced by "aplenty" (LRB, "plentifully"). On the Wadi el-Hol horizontal inscription, the line begins with the sequence R B W N M N, for which I tentatively propose "plenty of wine and provisions".
http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2009/12/wadi-el-hol-proto-alphabetic.html
  [9] L R B "aplenty"
  /B/ (MdV B) This is an unusual form of B (Bet, from bayt, "house"), with three rooms, and it looks more like a door with panels, and thus D (Dalet, dalt, "door"); but its counterparts on other tablets have only two rooms (still one too many for a simple dwelling), and the D-sign has a door-post, as we shall see.  Having twelve instances earns B the 6th place, neatly matching B6.
    This is generally assumed to be end of the text, and in my sinistrograde (L<- R) system it follows on from the MNRW box in the bottom left corner; but for the dextrograde (L ->R) scheme it is the beginning (and end) of a third line, and this seems to be supported by the bar-line on the far right of the lower line of writing, with a space beside it. In this case, the sequence would be BRL not LRB, and this would be the natural view to take, given that there is no bar after the L. This is alarming, considering the good sense that my direction of reading has made! However, I am obliged to suppose that the space at the presumed start of each of the three lines is meant to indicate where the line begins.
RECAPITULATION OF 1440
Let is now return to the beginning and work through the text to the ending.
(1 - 2) L N R R | N T. `  "For (L) prime (R) cultivation (NR) of a plantation (NT`)"
The combination NR could invoke "light" or "fire", but another nyr root refers to "tillage", and I have tried that line of thought. However, in the Sinai proto-alphabetic inscriptions I detect the root ryr, "secrete", and though the noun usually turns up as "spittle", the term rr b`l means "outpouring of Ba`al" in its two occurrences: 367 ("reservoir of outpouring of Ba`al"), and 357 ("water of the spring of the Mother or outpouring of Ba`al").
http://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2007/10/ancient-sinai-irrigation-sinai.html
What is required for successful cultivating of a plant, or a plantation, specifically a vineyard producing wine? The text does not supply a clear answer. If this is a prayer (though no god is named) or a magic spell, then its recitation is sufficient for the purpose, and the thl that is given to it (3 - 4) is literally "praise" (tehilla), spoken (or even sung, see further below) to the plants. However, if "water" is the requisite commodity, then the Mem in section 8 provides this fluid, either as a logogram for mym, or as the word mu. Thus, the key to proper care of a vineyard, to promote its growth, is "water of cultivation and plenty of it" (8 - 9). What is the source of the water? In that culture and climate it was the downpour sent by Ba`al Hadad from his clouds, and there is a possible reference to this in section 2. Having allowed the letter`Ayin to be a simple dot, representing an eye, like the dot accompanying R (human head) and 'Alep (bovine head), then the other two dots are for doubling; this practice was widespread in the period of the Proto-alphabet, in the Bronze Age; accordingly, one dot doubles the `ayin at the end of NT`, and the other dot indicates duplication of N, taking the presumed divider as a long form of a snake, which does have its own head. This decision produces a word `NN, "cloud", verily a devoutly wished consummation. On the other hand, the two dots together double the letter `Ayin, and employ it as a logogram for "a spring" (`n), a source of water provided by a goddess. However, if the combination `N is admitted, the possible meanings are multiplied, with "iniquity", "furrow", "occupation", and "sexual intercourse". Then there is "sing": here "singing to give praise" (2 - 4) is in line with Isaiah 27:2-3,  where Yahweh sings lovingly to a vineyard, which he waters constantly;  and in Hosea Chapter 2, significantly though not certainly, after withholding grain, oil, and wine (2:10-11), because of Israel's worship of Ba`al, Yahweh "answers", but all the `N verbs ("flow", not "reply") are made to say "make productive" (Hip`il): the heavens produce rain, and make the earth productive, and the earth produces new wine (2: 23-24). {Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, VI, 500} I have consulted a viticulture manual to confirm that wine-vines require water (in various amounts, according to the type of wine), but the prophets have already affirmed this.
  Of course, clouds can be illusionary, and they can cloud issues, but in section 3, the dots associated with NTN ("give") may produce the same `nn ("cloud") as proposed in section 2.
  Remember, the only person with the knowledge of the intended meaning of this tablet, as always, was the person who composed the text, and  that author is no longer available for consultation. Consequently, the import of the statement is not obvious, but ambiguous, or polyvalent, or downright promiscuous.
  Nevertheless, the possible achievements of this analysis are:
  (1) probable recognition of the sound-values of the signs in this inscription, tidily matching their occurrences with their counterparts on the frequency table that has been constructed on the basis of the Bal`am text from a later time, which had readily identifiable Phoenician-style letters; the Y-sign is apparently missing at the present stage of the investigation, but the word W|N "wine" seems to require the median stroke to represent Y (as also in 1449), and M|M could be "water"; and since Yod is 5th on the frequency table, it should be attested in this inscription, which includes all the consonants in the first half of that frequency sequence; but if we allow the | to be Y here it will have 7 occurrences, equaling the number of instances of L, which is the top scorer on the table and in this collection; it may be that not all the instances of | indicate the consonant Y;
  (2) reasonable interpretation of the text as concerning viticulture and the need for watering the plants, so as to produce goodly quantities of wine for the festivals; but the proposed translation given at the outset needs to be modified in accordance with the various possibilities presented in the notes;
  (3) plausible determination of the direction of writing as sinistrograde (right to left, L <- R), when the tablet is held right way up, opposite to the stance shown in the original publication; the Samek with its stem protruding at the bottom supports this orientation; but my predecessors do not see the text beginning with:
) ) | /\  RRNL (<-)