Abstract
II. THE new alphabet eventually made its way from the Delta to the old home of the Phoenicians on the coast of Palestine. Already in the time of David the Syrians had their historians and state annals, and Hiram of Tyre, we are told, wrote letters to King Solomon. The Phœnician alphabet, as we may now call it, was communicated to the Israelites along with other elements of culture, and the neighbouring populations of Edom, of Ammon, and of Moab received it at the same time. Names had already been given to the letters, derived from Phœnician words which began with the several letters of the alphabet, a, for instance, being called aleph,“an ox,” b, bêth, “a house,” and so on. In this way the meaning of each letter was the more easily impressed upon the memory of the Phoenician schoolboy, just as in our own nurseries it used to be thought that we should have less difficulty in learning oar alphabet if we were taught that “A was an archer who shot at a frog,” than if we were simply told that A was A. Names and letters alike were imported into the countries that adjoined Phoenicia, and in course of time inscriptions in the new characters were engraved upon stone, as well as painted on the more perishable materials of papyrus or bark. The earliest monument of the Phosnician alphabet that has come down to us is the famous Moabite Stone, discovered a few years ago on the site of Dibon, which records the conquests and buildings of King Mesha, the contemporary of Ahab. The forms assumed by the characters upon this stone must have been the same as those employed by the Jewish prophets when writing down their prophecies or recording the history of their times.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
The History of Writing 1 . Nature 21, 404–406 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/021404b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/021404b0