ALPHABET
ALPHABET
73
the owl coming to resemble the undulations of waves (see col. 2 and 3). Tlie Sem. names are iiometimes more easily exjilained by the Egyp. forms of the Papyrus rrisse than by those in the oldest Sem. inscriptions. The Sem. names are usually interpreted as follows: "a/e/y/i means an 'ox'; beth signifies a ' house' ; and gimcl, a 'camel,' the Hieratic form resembling a recumbent camel, with the head, neck, body, tail, and saddle, of which only the head and neck are preserved in the oldest Sem. letter ; duleth means a ' door,' not a house door, but the curtain forming the entrance to an Eaotem tent ; he signifies a ' window ' ; vau is a nail,
Seg, or hook for hanging things on ; zayin probably enotes ' weapons ' ; heth, a fence or ' palisade ' ; Uth, from a root meaning curvature, is supposed to have been a picture of a coiled snake ; yod is the ' hand ' ; ka/ih the ' palm ' of the hand, or the bent hand; lamed is an 'ox -goad'; mem, the 'waters'; nun, a 'fish'; samekh is probably a prop or supi)ort ; 'ayin is the 'eye ; pe, the ' mouth ' ; zade is probably a ' javelin,' or perhaps a liook ; koph is usually supposed to mean a ' knot' ; resh is the ' head ' ; shin, the ' teeth ' ; tau, a ' cross,' or sign for marking beasts. It will be noticed that six of these names, gimel, he, yod, nun, pe, and samel.h, must be very ancient, being most easily exiJiiiicil by reference to the Hieratic forms.
The early history of the A. has to be recon- structed from inscriptions, many of which have only been discovered in recent years. Among the monuments of the older stage of the Ph(i;n. A. the great inscrimion of Meslia, king of Moab, ranks lirst in inii ortance. In 1808 Air. Klein, of the C. M. S., visited the site of Dibon, the ancient capital of the kingdom of Moab. Here he was shown a block of basalt, with an inscription in 34 lines of wr ing. Tlie interest excited by this discovery, and the rival efl'orts of the European consuls to secure the treasure, un fortunately aroused the jealou.sy of the Arabs, by whom the stone was broken into fragments, some forty of which have been recovered, enough to lay the foundation of early Sera, pala-ography. In this inscription, which must be referred to the middle of the 9th cent. B.C., Mesha, in language clo.sely akin to IJibl. Hebrew, gives an account of the wars between Israel and Moau, narrating more esp. those events in his own reign which took place after the death of Ahab in 853 B.C. The year 850 B.C. has been generally accepted by scholars as an approximate date for the record. Somewhat earlier, though of less historical importance, are some inscribed fragments of bronze vessels, obtained from Cyprus in 1876, which proved to be portions of two bowls containing dedi- cations to liaal Lebanon. They must have been carried oil' to Cyprus as a part of the spoils from a temple on Lebanon. The writing on one of the bowls proves on palaiographical grounds to be nearly of the same date as the Moabite inscrip- tion, while that on the other bowl exhibits more archaic forms of several letters, and may probably be older by a century, belonging to the close of the 10th or the beginning of the Uth cent. B.C. It is from these bowls, supplemented by the evidence of the Moabite Stone, tliat the A. in col. 3 has been constructed.
It is called the Isra«litic A. in older to avoid confusion with a much later A., which, having been lirst known to scholars, u.Hur]icd the name of the lleb. A. It cannot be too carefully remembered that at successive periods in their liisloi-y the Hebrews emjjloyed two A.h, identical in all es.sential particulars, but wholly unlike in the external appearance of the letters. Krom the earliest period of which we |)Os.scss any knowledge, down to the captivity in liabylon, this I'Iki'U. A., of which the oldest monuments are the Moabite
Stone and the Baal Lebanon bowls, must also have been the contemporary A. of the Hebrews. This was ingeniously proved by Ueseuius, long before these monuments were discovered. He contended that the earlier books of the OT could not have been written, as was formerly supposed, in what is now known as the Heb. A., since many obvious corruptions in the text could onlj' have arisen from the errors of copyists, who confounded letters which are much alike in the old Fhcen., but are quite dis- similar in the square Hebrew. For example, in tlie list of David's mighty men, recorded in 2 S 23-'", we have the name Ueleb, which in the parallel passage in 1 Ch 11** appears as Heled. One of these readings is obviously corrupt, and the corrujj tion can only be due to the original record having been written in the older or I'liien. A., in which the letters hcth and daUlh dilier so slightly as often to be hardly distinguishable, whereas in the later or square Heb. A. the letters 3 and i are unmistakably distinct. Hence, he argued, the record must be prior to the Captivity, when, according to the Rabbinic tradition, the new A. was introduced. When Gesenius wiote, the evi- dence as to the nature of the older Heb. A. was scanty in the extreme, being limited to a few engraved gems in the Phcen. A., sujjposed to be Heb. because of their bearing names apparently Jewish. Now, however, all doubts have been set at rest by the accidental discovery in 1880 of the famous Siloam inscription, engraved in a recess of the tunnel which pierces the ridge of Uphel, and brings water from the Pool of the Virgin to the Pool of Siloam. The inscrijition which records the construction of the tunnel is in six liiiesof writing, manifestly later in date than the Moabite inscrip- tion, though of .he same type. On palivographical grounds it has been assigned to the reign of Manasseh, B.C. 685-6-11, though it isjiossible that it may be as early as the reign of Hezekiah, and may refer to the conduit constructed by him at the end of the 8th cent., as recorded in 2 K 20** and 2 Ch 32™. This A. is of sjiecial interest, as in it most of the writings of the Jewish prophets must have been compo.sed. This older A. lingered long, being employed on the coins of the Maccabees and on those of the Hiusmonoean jirinces. It survives as the sacred sciijit of the few Samaritan families at Nablfls, who still worship in their temple on Mt. Gerizim, and keep the 1 a-ssover with the ancient rites. With this exception, the old Plncn. A., the parent of all existing A.s, has become extinct.