Hebrew Syllabary

The Lost Link

The Alphabet in the Hands of the Early Israelites

Brian E. Colless

Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2014/04/early-hebrew-syllabary.html

Go there to see pictures

If I am not interrupting, I would like to tell you something that has got me thinking: I have made a surprising discovery about the way the alphabet was used by the Israelites in their early period of settlement in the Promised Land, that is, the time of the Judges (including Samuel) or, archaeologically speaking, Iron Age I (c. 1200 to 1000 BCE).

I feel like the woman in the parable (Luke 15:8-9) who lit a lamp, poured light on the scene, and searched diligently for a lost coin, one of her ten silver drachmas; when she found it she rejoiced and rushed to tell her friends and neighbours. So here is my ten drachmas’ worth to share with everybody, as I am confident that I have alighted on something significant that has been overlooked for three millennia. This lost object, now ready for our inspection, is just one of a whole bunch of keys that can open doors to our understanding of the early alphabet, with regard to its features and functions. Indeed, it is a missing link in a ten-point theory of the origin and evolution of the alphabet.

The main difficulty we encounter, as practitioners of ancient Hebrew epigraphy, is the dearth of documents available for study, from those early centuries of the Iron Age. The few inscriptions we do have are brief and frequently fragmentary.[1] However, things are now improving, and we possess two five-line texts, namely the Izbet Sartah Ostracon[2] and the Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon[3].

The Qeiyafa Ostracon came to light in Khirbet Qeiyafa, a fort overlooking the Valley of Elah, where David confronted Goliath (1 Samuel 17); the site has been plausibly identified as Sha`arayim (mentioned in 1 Samuel 17:52).

A tentative drawing of the Qeiyafa Ostracon (BEC)

On this potsherd from three thousand years ago there are five faded lines of alphabetic letters, written in ink; and some of the signs have their upper part missing, because of damage to the top of the ostracon. The text runs from left to right (the opposite of later Hebrew writing). The first letter on the first line (top left corner) is ’Aleph, in a reclining attitude. The better-known upright stance (Greek Alpha and Roman A) appears at the start of lines 4 and 5. The original form, the head of an ox with horns, is found near the end of the top line. Closer examination reveals that other letters likewise have variations in their shape and stance. Notice that the letter Shin stands at the beginning of the second line in a figure-3 pose, but further along the line it looks like W. The numerous instances of Mem (all vertical, never like the horizontal Greco-Roman M) have different numbers of curves (or water waves).

The question that begs to be asked (though nobody has dared to articulate it) is whether all the variations are arbitrary (just vagaries of the writer’s style of handwriting, like the three different renderings of P in my personal repertoire) or whether the differences are deliberate and meaningful.

The common assumption is that the early Hebrew alphabet was like the Phoenician alphabet of the Iron Age: it had twenty-two letters and each of them stood for a particular consonant, and of course there was no indication of the vowels in writing. The dots and dashes found in Hebrew Bibles for indicating vowels were much later inventions of scribes who were concerned that the Sacred Scriptures should be recited correctly. Eventually, later in the Iron Age, vowel markers were inserted in a Hebrew text, using Waw for showing the presence of a long u or o, Yod for long i or e, and He for long a; these are known technically as matres lectionis (mothers of reading, offering sustenance to the reader, so to speak). This idea was not used in Phoenician inscriptions, but it is still employed in Modern Hebrew writing.

Returning to our question regarding the possible significance of the variations in the letters on the Qeiyafa Ostracon, we may now ask whether the various forms and stances of each letter constituted a way of denoting particular vowels. Actually, there was already an analogy for this in the West Semitic cuneiform alphabet, which was particularly associated with the city of Ugarit (on the Syrian coast, east of Cyprus) but it is also attested throughout the Levant. The scribes of Ugarit, in the Late Bronze Age II, immediately preceding the Iron Age, had a cuneiform sign for each consonant, made up of wedge-shaped marks, and I am convinced (having demonstrated this elsewhere) that each was constructed with the image of the corresponding letter of the Semitic alphabet in mind.[4] This is the relevant detail: on the clay tablets of Ugarit there were three distinct ’Aleph characters, representing ’a, ’i, ’u.

This phenomenon could account for the trio of ’Aleph forms on the Qeiyafa Ostracon. But my idea goes further than that: in the early “Israelian” Hebrew alphabet each of its twenty-two letters had two additional forms, making a total of sixty-six signs. In fact, the system was not a simple consonantary (which the Phoenician alphabet certainly was, in the Iron Age) but a syllabary. Incidentally, there has long been a discussion about the nature of the Phoenician alphabet, and whether it should be understood as a syllabary, with each sign standing for a consonant with any vowel; but that is a different matter. What I am proposing here is a syllabic alphabet.

How can this syllabary hypothesis be tested? A first step would be to compare the letters found on the Qeiyafa inscription with their counterparts in the Izbet Sartah text.

Tentative drawing of the Izbet Sartah Ostracon (BEC)

The boon of this document is the copy of the scribe’s own script in the fifth line, running from the left (sinistrodextrally) with the familiar Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth, which would become Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta when the Hellenic alphabet was constructed from the West Semitic consonantary, and when Aleph (the glottal stop) became the sign for the vowel a, with no consonantal reference. The copy of the alphabet presented to us on the Izbet Sartah Ostracon has the expected twenty-two letters, though some of them are hiding from us, and several of them are not in the order we know from the later Hebrew and Greek alphabets.

Habitually in this field of endeavour, the assumption is made that when the letters in this abecedary (or “abagadary”) are used in a text, the reader will have to supply the appropriate vowel in every case. However, in the four lines of writing above the Izbet Sartah alphabet (which are an interesting personal message from the writer himself, in my interpretation of them) we are offered Aleph in more than one stance (though the inverted A-form, the ox-head, is absent here). And when we have established the shape of the Lamed in the bottom line (more like a 6 than a 9), we look higher and see 9s as well as 6s (with the added complication that this scribe makes it difficult to distinguish B and L).

Consider also Kaph: we can see the origins of Greek Kappa in the model provided in line 5, but at the beginning of line 2 it is quite different, being a bisected right angle on a stem; I suggest (after experimenting with possible words and meanings in both texts) that the K-form says ka, and the trident is ki. My detailed observation of the letters in this line, in comparison with examples on the Qeiyafa inscription and other related documents, leads me to suspect that this inventory is indeed an abagadary, in that every sign has the vowel a built into it: ’A, BA, GA, DA, and so on to TA. The Taw here is not a simple + cross (like a plus sign) since the cross-beam points north-east; and if we focus on a trio of them, one above another, in lines 1, 2, and 4, we see the middle one has its cross-bar pointing north-west, and I have reasons for believing it is TI.

Now, if we take the Izbet Sartah TA to the Qeiyafa text, this matches the third letter in the top line, and the presumed TI is the penultimate sign in the bottom line. The TU is lurking in line 3 (a small character) as a cross that is shaped almost like a multiplication sign. If we apply this information to Phoenician inscriptions from the same period we might expect to see the TA syllabogram functioning as Taw, or even a perfectly even cross (+); but the TI is predominant.

Looking at Shin, we know two forms, “W” (SHI) and “3” (SHA in the Izbet Sartah abagadary), and the Qubur Walayda Bowl (pictured below) provides the third, a reversed “3”; the SHI sign (W) is what we see in the Phoenician realm, as well as in later Hebrew inscriptions, notably the Gezer Calendar[5], which show that the Phoenician style was adopted, in the 10^th century BCE, during the reigns of David and Solomon, when commercial and diplomatic relations were flourishing between Jerusalem and Tyre.

A supposition is rising up before our eyes: the Izbet Sartah abagadary (with its a-vowel syllabograms) is not the place to look for the originals of the letters in the later consonantal alphabet, because this simpler system was made up of i-syllable signs (but with the vowels ignored). Fortunately we have at our disposal a list of the consonantal letters from Iron Age II, on the Tel Zayit Stone, and it seems that this document confirms the supposition.[6]

Thus, the Zayit K is not the KA of the Izbet Sartah abagadary, but the KI at the start of line 2 (as mentioned earlier), which is a trident. The Qeiyafa KI (in the word MLK “king”) apparently has no stem, but this is likewise the case with all the Phoenician examples.

Seeking a Phoenician counterpart for one of the three Aleph characters, we are at a loss, but perhaps the key feature is not the stance but the crossbar, which breaks through one side or both sides. The Zayit Aleph is typical, pointing leftwards, the direction of the writing, and having a vertical line cutting through it. Here we must acknowledge that the various scribes had their idiosyncrasies (whether regional or personal) and possibly made their own rules for distinguishing the syllabic forms of each letter.

Samek in the international consonantal alphabet was a “telegraph pole”, a stem with three (or just two) crossbars; it is actually an Egyptian djed, representing a spinal column. However, this character does not appear in any of the Iron Age I inscriptions, because they have a fish for their Samek. That is what we see in the Izbet Sartah abagadary between Nun and Pe; on the Qeiyafa text, in line 4, between Y and D (notice the dots indicating a fan-tail in each case); also on the Beth-Shemesh Ostracon; but prejudgement (rather than blind prejudice) does not allow most epigraphists to see it, because they are convinced that the fish in the Bronze Age proto-alphabet was D (from dag “fish”). Possibly the tree-shaped Samek functioned as SI in the syllabic alphabet, and it has not turned up in the extant inscriptions. There were presumably 66 signs, and we certainly have not seen them all yet.

‘Ayin in the Phoenician alphabet, as also on the Zayit Stone, is a circle, but without the centre-dot that is characteristic of the sign in the south in Iron Age I. However, on the Beth-Shemesh Ostracon[7] there is one of each, leading to the suspicion that the empty circle is the syllable ‘I. The sign for ‘U remains to be identified.

Mem has a variety of forms in the documents, but there are three basic types: the Phoenician M is presumably MI and it has the top stroke pointing NE, and the bottom stroke SW (the number of intervening angles varies for MI in Israel); MA has the top as NE and the bottom as SE (and only one angle in between); MU has the top as NW and the bottom as SW (with two angles or only one in between). Confusion could occur between MA and SHU, and also between SHA and short versions of MU, but the Sh-signs have horizontal tops and bottoms.

Looking back to the beginnings, the original prototype of the alphabet came out of the West Semitic syllabary in the Bronze Age.[8] At least eighteen (18/22) of the letters that survived into the Phoenician and Hebrew consonantal alphabet of the Iron Age were already in the syllabary; this can be seen on the table of alphabet evolution appended below (note the BS [Byblos script] column in the Phoenicia section). For the most part, the syllabograms with –a were chosen for this purpose. The proto-alphabet was patterned after the Egyptian writing system, which did not indicate vowels, but the characters could function as logograms, ideograms, and rebograms (rebuses).[9] We see this in the proto-alphabetic inscription from Wadi el-Hol in the Egyptian desert, which speaks of feasting in celebration of the goddess ‘Anat, in agreement with the Egyptian inscriptions reporting similar carousing in honour of Hathor.[10]

The new Iron Age syllabary did not necessarily select the direct descendant of these originals for the a-set: for example, the Aleph corresponding to the ox-head is not ’a, but little more can be said on this score at present.

Suddenly we realise that we are hearing the vowels as well as the consonants! The writer of the Izbet Sartah says, in my reading of his text (line 1b-2a): “I see that the eye gives the breath of the sign into the ear”. In this statement he uses the ‘Ayin sign for “see” and then for “the eye”, continuing the practice that goes right back to the inception of the proto-alphabet, and also to the West Semitic syllabary that preceded it, whereby the pictophonograms could act not only as consonantograms or syllabograms, but also as logograms, ideograms, and rebograms (rebuses), as happened with the hieroglyphs in the Egyptian writing system, which influenced the formation of these two West Semitic scripts.

Thus, the early Hebrew alphabet of Iron Age I was not the same as the Phoenician alphabet of the Iron Age: it had sixty-six letters (not simply twenty-two), and each of them stood for a particular open syllable (consonant plus vowel, not merely a single consonant), and so there was every indication of the vowels in writing. Moreover, the signs were multifunctional, a concept that is never countenanced in the standard manuals of West Semitic epigraphy.

In summary, here are some indicators for distinguishing the two early Iron Age alphabetic scripts, which we might call (1) the neo-syllabary and (2) the international consonantary.

(1) ISRAELIAN SCRIPT AND HEBREW LANGUAGE

(2) PHOENICIAN SCRIPT AND HEBREW LANGUAGE

(1) Various forms for each letter (’abugida syllabary)

(2) Single form for each letter (’bgd consonantary)

(1) Dextrograde, sinistrodextral (L > R)

(2) Sinistrograde, dextrosinistral (L < R)

(1) Fish for Samek

(2) Spinal column (djed) for Samek

(1) Dot in circle of `ayin

(2) No dot in circle of `ayin

(1) Vertical and horizontal forms of Sh-sign (3 and W)

(2) Horizontal Sh only (\/\/)

(1) Logography and Rebography

(2) Consonantal writing only

In the light of these criteria, we may consider some examples.

The broken inscription on the Ophel Pithos from Jerusalem is highly problematic, not having the key indicators (Samek, ‘Ayin, Shin), and with uncertainty about the direction of the writing.[11] It appears to have two forms of Nun (NI and a reversed version) or possibly two different instances of Mem; its Het is unusual, lacking a central crossbar, and so it seems to be neo-syllabic, possibly H.U but not H.I; the Mem (first letter on the left) seems to fit the MI mould, rather than MU or MA, and so it is not prescriptive either way; the letter following could be R (facing in the wrong direction) or Q (which should have the stem piercing the oval for QI and Phoenician Q), and the next one P (a reversal of the Phoenician P) or L (inverted and reversed). It is thus anomalous as a Phoenician-style text, and this perhaps supports it as neo-syllabic; and so it might have been written before David established his capital there. But it was inscribed before it was baked, and it was not necessarily made in Jerusalem.

Fragmentary pithos inscription from Jerusalem

Then there is the Qubur el-Walaydah bowl, usually dated early in the Iron Age, and is quite instructive as far as it goes.

Drawing of the QW bowl (BEC)

Transcribing the writing (from left to right) with consonants only, I read:

Sh M B? ` L | ’ Y ’ L | M H.

The bulk of the text is a personal name, the second part being the patronymic. As stated above, the Sh-sign (not “3” SHA nor “W” SHI) would be SHU. The Mem should be MI (though it has more angles than the Phoenician form). Thirdly B or P (but BA seems more likely than PA, because it is the god Ba`al). Then comes ‘Ayin with no dot, so it is ‘I. The Lamed here is not the same as the one further on, and I will not make a decision on their respective sounds; but it might be LI. Hence Shumiba`ili (“name of Ba`al”). Regarding the Mem Het combination (apparently separated from the rest by another dividing stroke), this could say MAH.U “a fatling” (a sacrifice, as at the end of the Wadi el-Hol horizontal inscription).

Another intriguing inscription comes from Gath, the hometown of Goliath.[12]