Book Title: Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind
Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications
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CHAPTER X
SYLLABIC SYSTEMS OF WRITING
SYLLAB ARIES THE HISTORY of writing does not present many pure syllabaries. The most important syllabaries are: (1) The pseudo-hieroglyphic script of Byblos (Syria) and the syllabary of ancient Cyprus; (2) the two Japanese syllabaries still in use; and (3) syllabaries recently compiled by or for certain indigenous peoples of western Africa and northern America. We shall deal here briefly with each of these groups.
Pseudo-hieroglyphic Script of Byblos Inscriptions
There are now ten inscriptions or fragments extant (Fig. 82-87), on stone or bronze, written in a pseudo-hieroglyphic script, presumably bearing some resemblance to Egyptian hieroglyphics. The whole material has been recently edited in a splendid publication by the discoverer himself (M. Dunand, Byblia Grammata. Documents et recherches sur le developpement de l'écriture en Phénicie. République Libanaise. Ministère de l'Education Nationale et des Beaux-Arts. Direction des Antiquités. Études et Documents d'Archéologie. Tome II, Beyrouth, Imprimerie Catholique, 1945). As M, Dunand points out, two of the documents seem to be fragments of one and the same inscription, the number of the inscriptions would thus be nine. Of these, six are bronze tablets, and M. Dunand rightly emphasizes that this proportion is unique in Near Eastern epigraphy. The most remarkable is a rectangular bronze tablet (Fig. 82, 1) containing 41 lines, of which 19 are on the verso, and consisting of 461 symbols, of which 64 are different. Another rectangular bronze tablet (82, 2) contains 15 lines, of which two are on the reverse side, consisting of 217 symbols, of which 53 are different.
The other bronze inscriptions are spatulae (Fig. 82, 3, 83 and 84). containing respectively 41, 12, 29 and 33 symbols. The three or four stone inscriptions (Fig. 85 and 86) consist of one stele and three fragments, two of which, as mentioned, may be parts of the same inscription. On these stone inscriptions there are extant respectively 119. 17. 6 and 13 symbols.
The Script
In all, the documents contain 114 different signs, which Dunand distinguishes into symbols representing : (1) animals (13 signs),
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