Proto-Sinaitic Script
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Proto-Sinaitic Script
Proto-Sinaitic (also referred to as Sinaitic, Proto-Canaanite when found in Canaan, the North Semitic alphabet, or Early Alphabetic) is considered the earliest trace of alphabetic writing and the common ancestor of both the Ancient South Arabian script and the Phoenician alphabet, which led to many modern alphabets including the Greek alphabet. According to common theory, Canaanites or Hyksos who spoke a Semitic language repurposed Egyptian hieroglyphs to construct a different script. The script is attested in a small corpus of inscriptions found at Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, dating to the Middle Bronze Age (2100–1500 BC). The earliest Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions are mostly dated to between the mid-19th (early date) and the mid-16th (late date) century BC. However, the discovery of the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions near the Nile River indicates that the script originated in Egypt. The evolution of Proto-Sinaitic and the various Proto-Canaanite scripts during ...
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Abjad
An abjad (, ar, أبجد; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with other alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels. The term was introduced in 1990 by Peter T. Daniels. Other terms for the same concept include: partial phonemic script, segmentally linear defective phonographic script, consonantary, consonant writing, and consonantal alphabet.Amalia E. Gnanadesikan (2017) Towards a typology of phonemic scripts, Writing Systems Research, 9:1, 14-35, DOI: 10.1080/17586801.2017.1308239 "Daniels (1990, 1996a) proposes the name abjad for these scripts, and this term has gained considerable popularity. Other terms include partial phonemic script (Hill, 1967), segmentally linear defective phonographic script (Faber, 1992), consonantary (Trigger, 2004), consonant writing (Coulmas, 1989) and consonantal alphabet (Gnanadesikan, 2009; Healey, 1990). " Impure abja ...
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Epigraphy
Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the writing and the writers. Specifically excluded from epigraphy are the historical significance of an epigraph as a document and the artistic value of a literature, literary composition. A person using the methods of epigraphy is called an ''epigrapher'' or ''epigraphist''. For example, the Behistun inscription is an official document of the Achaemenid Empire engraved on native rock at a location in Iran. Epigraphists are responsible for reconstructing, translating, and dating the trilingual inscription and finding any relevant circumstances. It is the work of historians, however, to determine and interpret the events recorded by the inscription as document. Often, epigraphy and history are competences practised by the same person. Epigraphy ...
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Turquoise
Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrated phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula . It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gemstone and ornamental stone for thousands of years owing to its unique hue. Like most other opaque gems, turquoise has been devalued by the introduction of treatments, imitations and synthetics into the market. The robin's egg blue or sky blue color of the Persian turquoise mined near the modern city of Nishapur in Iran has been used as a guiding reference for evaluating turquoise quality. Names The word ''turquoise'' dates to the 17th century and is derived from the French ''turquois'' meaning "Turkish" because the mineral was first brought to Europe through the Ottoman Empire.Turquoise
. minerals.usgs.gov
Howe ...
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Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie
Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egyptology in the United Kingdom, and excavated many of the most important archaeological sites in Egypt in conjunction with his wife, Hilda Urlin. Some consider his most famous discovery to be that of the Merneptah Stele, an opinion with which Petrie himself concurred. Undoubtedly at least as important is his 1905 discovery and correct identification of the character of the Proto-Sinaitic script, the ancestor of almost all alphabetic scripts. Petrie developed the system of dating layers based on pottery and ceramic findings. He remains controversial for his pro-eugenics views; he was a dedicated believer in the superiority of the Northern peoples over the Latinate and Southern peoples. Early life Petrie was born on 3 June 1853 in Charlton ...
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Biblical Archaeology Review
''Biblical Archaeology Review'' is a magazine appearing every three months and sometimes referred to as ''BAR'' that seeks to connect the academic study of archaeology to a broad general audience seeking to understand the world of the Bible, the Near East, and the Middle East (Syro-Palestine and the Levant). Since its first issue in 1975, ''Biblical Archaeology Review'' has covered the latest discoveries and controversies in the archaeology of Israel, Turkey, Jordan and the surrounding regions as well as the newest scholarly insights into both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The magazine is published by the nonsectarian and nonprofit Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS). Sister publications ''Bible Review'' was also published by BAS from 1985 to 2005, with the goal of communicating the academic study of the Bible to a broad general audience. Covering both the Old and New Testaments, ''Bible Review'' presented critical and historical interpretations of biblical texts, and " ...
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Deborah Darnell
The Theban Desert Road Survey is an archaeological research project operated in conjunction with the Egyptian Ministry of Culture's Supreme Council for Antiquities that is being conducted in the Western Desert in Egypt that focuses on the ancient connections between Thebes and such settlements as the Kharga Oasis. The project uses remote sensing to identify roads and caravan trails that were used in antiquity to identify possible sites of previously unknown communities. Established in 1991 by Egyptologists Deborah Darnell and her then-husband John Coleman Darnell, the survey project grew substantially when it gained the support of Yale University in 1998. The Theban Desert Road Survey has discovered sites from Predynastic Egypt, including substantial caches of pottery and other artifacts. The project was begun by Deborah Darnell and John Coleman Darnell, who started searching along caravan trails in the Western Desert west of Luxor in the early 1990s under an approach they descr ...
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John Coleman Darnell
John Coleman Darnell is an American Egyptologist. Biography Darnell attributes his interest in archaeology to his mother, who was also had a lifelong interested in archaeology. She grew up in south Alabama and had a particular interest in the Mississippian Mound Builders. Darnell tells a story of her reading him archaeology books as a child, hoping he would take a nap, but he was fascinated and did not nap. Darnell got his BA (1984) and MA (1985) at Johns Hopkins University and his PhD (1995) at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. He joined the Yale Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations as Assistant Professor in 1998; he became Associate Professor in 2004, and Professor of Egyptology in 2005. He was the director of the Theban Desert Road Survey, which has used remote sensing to detect transportation networks between settlements in the Western Desert of Egypt that has focused on the connections between Thebes and such settlements as the Kharga Oa ...
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Middle Egypt
Middle Egypt () is the section of land between Lower Egypt (the Nile Delta) and Upper Egypt, stretching upstream from Asyut in the south to Memphis in the north. At the time, Ancient Egypt was divided into Lower and Upper Egypt, though Middle Egypt was technically a subdivision of Upper Egypt. It was not until the 19th century that archaeologists felt the need to divide Upper Egypt in two. As a result, they coined the term "Middle Egypt" for the stretch of river between Cairo and the Qena Bend. It was also associated with a region termed "Heptanomis" (; Greek: , in Ptol. iv. 5. § 55; more properly or , in Dionysius Periegetes 251; and sometimes ; meaning "Seven Nomes", a " nome" being a subdivision of ancient Egypt), generally as the district which separates the Thebaïd from the Delta. Middle Egypt today can be identified as the part of the Nile Valley that, while geographically part of Upper Egypt, is culturally closer to Lower Egypt. For instance, in terms of language, the ...
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Wadi El-Hol
Wadi el-Hol is a valley on the Farshut Road, north-west of Luxor on the Qena Bend, situated on the west bank of the river Nile in Egypt. Rock inscriptions in the valley appear to show the oldest examples of phonetic alphabetic writing discovered to date. History In 1993, American egyptologists Deborah Darnell and her then husband John Darnell found letters in two single-line rock inscriptions carved into limestone cliffs in the Wadi el-Hol valley. They returned to the site for several seasons through the 1990s to further study the inscriptions. In 1999, they finally published their research, concluding that they had found the earliest surviving alphabet, dating back to around 1800 to 1900 BCE. In particular, the inscriptions appear to resemble the Proto-Sinaitic script from Serabit el-Khadem. See also *Theban Desert Road Survey *Patterns of Evidence *Proto-Sinaitic script *Serabit el-Khadim *Writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal commun ...
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Flinders Petrie
Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egyptology in the United Kingdom, and excavated many of the most important archaeological sites in Egypt in conjunction with his wife, Hilda Urlin. Some consider his most famous discovery to be that of the Merneptah Stele, an opinion with which Petrie himself concurred. Undoubtedly at least as important is his 1905 discovery and correct identification of the character of the Proto-Sinaitic script, the ancestor of almost all alphabetic scripts. Petrie developed the system of dating layers based on pottery and ceramic findings. He remains controversial for his pro-eugenics views; he was a dedicated believer in the superiority of the Northern peoples over the Latinate and Southern peoples. Early life Petrie was born on 3 June 1853 in Charlton ...
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Hilda Petrie
Hilda Mary Isabel, Lady Petrie (née Urlin; 1871–1957), was an Irish-born British Egyptologist and wife of Sir Flinders Petrie,Margaret S. Drower, 'Petrie' Sir (William Matthew) Flinders (1853–1942)', Oxford Dictionary of national Biography, OUP, 2004; online edn, May 201accessed 25 Feb 2014/ref> the father of scientific archaeology. Having studied geology, she was hired by Flinders Petrie at age 25 as an artist, which led to their marriage and a working partnership that endured for their lifetimes. Hilda travelled and worked with Sir Flinders Petrie to excavate and record numerous sites in Egypt, and later in Palestine. This included directing some excavations herself, and working in often difficult and dangerous conditions to produce copies of tomb hieroglyphs and plans, and to record the work for reports to the Egypt Exploration Fund. When the British School of Archaeology in Egypt was founded in 1905 in London by Flinders Petrie, she worked as its secretary and fundrais ...
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Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon
The Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon is a ostracon (a trapezoid-shaped potsherd) with five lines of text, discovered during excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa in 2008. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said the inscription was the longest Proto-Canaanite text ever found. Carbon-14 dating of olive pips found in the same context with the ostracon and pottery analysis offer a date c. 3,000 years ago (10th century BCE). In 2010 the ostracon was placed on display in the Iron Age gallery of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Content, language, interpretation ;Émile Puech Although the writing on the ostracon is poorly preserved and difficult to read, Émile Puech of the École Biblique et Archéologique Française proposed that it be read: :1 ''ʾl tʿšq wʿbd ʾ ... h'' :2 ''špṭ wbk ʾlm špṭ'' :3 ''bgr wbʿll qṣm yḥd'' :4 ''ʾ wšrm ysd mlk'' :5 ''ḥrm (ššm?) ʿbdm mdrt'' :1 Do not oppress, and serve God … despoiled him/her :2 The judge and the widow wept; he had the ...
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