Abstract
The article contends that the adoption of the alphabetic script in the Levant in the LB II–early Iron Age is best explained by the scribal activity of the Empire’s representatives in the Egyptian centres of government and by the display of artefacts written in the hieroglyphic script in these centres. The early alphabetic inscriptions clustered mainly in regions located near the Egyptian centres of Gaza, Joppa, Beth-shean and Kumidi and the city-states of Lachish and Byblos. The latter was the first city that developed extensive writing in the alphabetic script and the first to form a scribal school under the patronage of its royal court. Although the Egyptian display inscriptions and scribal culture inspired the local Canaanite elites, the latter, rather than adopting the prestigious Egyptian script and language, absorbed only the idea of writing, and applied it to their culture in the revolutionary medium invented hundreds of years earlier in the Sinai Peninsula.
Notes
1 For the Proto-Canaanite inscription from Lahun, see Hamilton et al. Citation2007: 28–32, with earlier literature.
3 Contrary to the commonly held opinion, Benjamin Sass (Citation2019) recently suggested that the script was in use in the 9th century BCE (ca. 900–830 BCE), and that only then was it replaced by the alphabetic script.
4 Morenz (Citation2011: 223–242) emphasized the participation of the tribal elite in the invention and distribution of the alphabet.
6 Dates of the Egyptian pharaohs are given according to Thomas Schneider's chronology (2010).
9 I use the Low Chronology, as Finkelstein and Sass (Citation2013: 180; Sass and Finkelstein Citation2016: 25) suggested.
10 For criticism of the late date that Finkelstein and Sass attributed to the alphabetic inscriptions from the Beth-shean Valley, see Aḥituv and Mazar Citation2014: 40–53, 61–63; Vanderhooft Citation2017.
11 About a generation later, Yariri, King of Carchemish, claimed to have known 12 languages and to have been trained in four different scripts. Among the latter was ‘Suraean’ (or ‘Ṣuraean’), probably the Tyrian script; that is, the linear alphabetic script of Phoenicia (for a detailed discussion of the inscription, see Younger Citation2014, with earlier literature).
12 Petrographic analysis of EA 311 demonstrated that it was also dispatched from Lachish (Goren, Finkelstein and Na'aman 2004: 289).
15 For the date, see Finkelstein and Sass Citation2013: 156 n. 21.
17 Finkelstein and Sass (Citation2013: 184) raised the possibility that “Proto-Canaanite was linked, albeit in a still unknown way, to the Egyptian activity in this main region of Egyptian domination in the Levant in the 13th and 12th centuries.”
18 Note the continuity in the tradition of hieratic numerals between the Egyptian hieratic script and the Hebrew ostraca discovered in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the 8th–early 6th centuries BCE (Goldwasser Citation1991a). It illustrates how little we know of the development of the alphabetic script in the transition from the LB III to the late Iron IIA.
20 The inscribed jar sherd from Tel Jezreel is missing from the inscription lists of Finkelstein and Sass (Citation2013) and Aḥituv and Mazar (Citation2014).
21 As nothing is known of scribalism in Aram, Finkelstein and Sass (Citation2013: 188) claimed that “it is Rehov in early Iron IIA that might supply the earliest actual evidence for alphabetic writing in Aram.” Finkelstein (Citation2016) further suggested that the late-10th–early-9th century BCE city of Rehob was an Aramean city-state ruled by Damascus. For criticism of his proposal, see Mazar Citation2016: 115–116.
23 For the internal conditions that led to the formation of national scripts and local scribal schools, see Sanders Citation2004: 42–49; 2009: 36–75.
24 Lichtheim (2003: 89), for example, observed that “[t]he papyrus was written at the end of the 20th Dynasty, that is to say, directly after the events which the report relates. Whether or not the report reflects an actual mission, it depicts a true historical situation and a precise moment. It is the third decade of the reign of Ramesses XI (1090–1080 BCE)”.
25 Redford (Citation1986: 97–101) compared the reference to the daybook to other texts that appear in the Egyptian literature.
26 I deliberately avoid citing scholars who established the date of the Byblian script on the basis of the assumed extensive writing in the alphabetic script in Israel during the time of David and Solomon.
27 For a dating of the earlier inscriptions of Byblos to the 11th century BCE, see Lemaire 2012: 291–295; Amadasi Guzzo Citation2014: 73–78, both with earlier literature.
29 Metal arrowheads inscribed with personal names in alphabetic script might possibly indicate the prestigious nature of the script. Unfortunately, only one arrow (from Ruweiseh) was discovered in a clear archaeological context (a Roman-period tomb). All the rest arrived from the antiquity market. For the arrowheads, see Heltzer Citation2000; Puech Citation2000; Hess Citation2007; Sass Citation2010, with earlier literature. In their paleographic discussion of the alphabetic script, Finkelstein and Sass (Citation2013: 163, 210–212) took into consideration nine arrowheads whose data of discovery suggests authenticity. Many other arrows might also be authentic, but lack of secure archaeological context calls for caution. Therefore, I exclude the arrows from my discussion.
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