>Ancient Hebrew text found
>If you haven’t seen this, archaeologists found a potsherd with a text in ancient Hebrew characters.
The glyphs have been described as proto-Canaanite, though the era is claimed to be that of King David c. 1000 BC. Paleo-Hebrew was thought to have formed into square Hebrew near the time of Ezra/ Nehemiah at the end of the exile. Below is the first 3 paleo-Hebrew glyphs (alef, bet, gimel; a, b, g).
Categories: alphabet, archaeology
Proto-Canaanite? What time period is that?
Apparently about 1000 BC (the pottery anyway).
I’m not sure how much faith I put in the time frames or the order of the reconstructed evolution of the alphabet. I take carbon dating with a grain of salt, to be sure it is of some validity, but due to the issues it needs to be calibrated.
And why call something proto-Canaanite during the time of David?
Anyway, here is wikipedia’s record of the Hebrew alphabet. Clearly by the form of the letters, proto-Canaanite antedates paleo-Hebrew. The first letter comes from the word ox and the picture is of an ox head which becomes progressive stylised. The Latin “A” is alef turned sideways.