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THE ALPHABET NORTH SEMITIC INSCRIPTIONS
Until 1923 our knowlege of the native epigraphy of Syria and Palestine was rather unsatisfactory. The earliest datable known examples of the North Semitic alphabet were (a) the Moabite stone (Fig. 121) or Stone of Mesha' (2 Kings, iii, 4-5) dating from about the middle of the ninth century B.C.; (b) a Phænician inscription (Fig. 122, 1), found in Cyprus, on the fragments of a bowl dedicated to Ba'al of Lebanon, probably of the same century; (c) some Aramaic inscriptions (Fig. 126) from Zenjirli in Syria, of the ninth and eighth centuries B.c. These inscriptions, and particularly the Mesha' Stone, constituted-and in some books still constitute—the starting point for the study of the history of the alphabet.
A new chapter was begun with the discovery, by the French scholar P. Montet, in 1923 at Byblos (Phænicia), of the Akhiram epitaph. About its date there has been some disagreement. While several scholars prefer the tenth, eleventh or twelfth century B.C., others (and I think they are
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Fig. 108Early North Semitic inscriptions, II 1, The Akhira Ahiram inscription. 2, The Akhiram graffito. 3, The Abiba'al inscription right) believe that the only evidence we have is archæological. This was said to indicate the thirteenth century B.C., whereas the majority of the scholars dated the two inscriptions in question in the twelfth or eleventh century B.c. I am now inclined to accept the latter date.
However, the epigraph on Akhiram's sarcophagus (Fig. 108, 1) and the graffito on his tomb (Fig. 108, 2) until recently were considered as the oldest North Semitic inscriptions extant, followed by the Yekhimilk inscription of the eleventh century B.C., the Gezer calendar (Fig. 115, 1) of the eleventh century B.c., the Roueisseh spearhead inscription (ca. eleventh-tenth century B.c.), the Abiba'al (Fig. 108, 3) and Eliba'al inscriptions (tenth century B.C.). According to my opinion, until Maurice Dunand's recent discoveries (see p. 206), only these inscriptions were to be considered as a trustworthy starting-point for the history of the alphabet. Nowadays, however, two of the three early alphabetic inscriptions of Byblos (Fig. 107), if M, Dunand's dating be correct, which,
