Byblos syllabary
Encyclopedia
The Byblos syllabary, also known as the Pseudo-hieroglyphic script, Proto-Byblian, Proto-Byblic, or Byblic, is officially an undeciphered writing system, known from ten inscriptions found in Byblos
. The inscriptions are engraved on bronze plates and spatulas, and carved in stone. They were excavated by Maurice Dunand, from 1928 to 1932, and published in 1945 in his monograph Byblia Grammata. The inscriptions are conventionally dated to the second millennium BC, probably between the 18th
and 15th
centuries BC.
Examples of the script have also been discovered in Egypt, Italy, and Megiddo (Garbini, Colless).
Also, part of a monumental inscription in stone has been found in Byblos in a script that seems intermediate between the Pseudo-hieroglyphs and the later Phoenician alphabet. 21 characters are visible; most of them are common to both the Pseudo-hieroglyphic script and the Phoenician alphabet, while the few remaining signs are either Pseudo-hieroglyphic or Phoenician (Dunand, Byblia Grammata, pp. 135–138).
Garbini estimates the actual number of signs to be about 90. This number suggests the script to be a syllabary
, where each character was pronounced as a syllable, usually a consonant-plus-vowel combination. If the number of consonants was between 22 (like the later Phoenician alphabet) and 28 (like Ugaritic) and if the number of vowels was three (the original Semitic vowels were a, i, and u) or four to six (if it included an e and o, or a mute vowel), the total number of signs needed would be between 3×22=66 and 6×28=168, which is of the right order of magnitude.
, but there are many others which do not. Hoch (1990) points out that many of the signs seem to derive from Old Kingdom
hieratic
, rather than directly from hieroglyphic. It is known that from as early as 2600 BC Egyptian influence in Byblos was strong: Byblos was the main export harbor for "cedar" wood to Egypt, and consequently there was a considerable Egyptian merchant community in Byblos. Thus it is probable that the syllabary was devised by someone in Byblos who had seen Egyptian hieroglyphs and used them freely as an example to compose a new syllabary that was better adapted to the native language of Byblos—just as in neighbouring Ugarit
a few centuries later a cuneiform
alphabet was devised that was easier to use than the complicated Akkadian
cuneiform.
Quite many signs resemble letters of the later Phoenician alphabet: . This suggests that the latter was derived in some way from the syllabary. Thus the inscriptions are potentially an important link between the Egyptian hieroglyphic script and the later Semitic abjads derived from Proto-Sinaitic.
The word directly before the seven "1" marks consists of four different signs: . The first (rightmost) sign, damaged but recognizable, and the leftmost sign resemble the letters 'b' and 't', respectively, of the later Phoenician alphabet. Dhorme now interpreted the whole word ('b-..-..-t') as Phoenician "b(a) + š(a)-n-t", "in the year (of)" (Hebrew bišnat), which gave him the phonetic meanings of all four signs. These he substituted in the rest of the inscriptions, thereby looking for recognizable parts of more Phoenician words that would give him the reading of more signs. In the end he proposed transcriptions for 75 signs.
read the body of characters as an alphabet and categorized the various signs into 27 "classes". After publishing "part one" of his decipherment, in two volumes, he never published a sequel.
from the University of Michigan
. Many signs that reappear in the later Phoenician alphabet were assumed by Mendenhall to have a similar phonetic value. For example, the sign which in Phoenician has the value g (Hebrew gimel), is assumed to have the phonetic value ga. A sign which resembles an Egyptian hieroglyph meaning "King of Upper Egypt" is interpreted as "mulku" (Semitic for 'regal'; compare Hebrew mèlekh, 'king'), which furnished the phonetic reading mu. The latter example illustrates that Mendenhall extensively made use of the acrophonic principle, where the phonetic value of a syllabic sign is assumed to be equal to the initial sound of the (Semitic) word for the object that is depicted by the sign.
Mendenhall took the language to be very early ("Old Coastal") Semitic, from before the split between the Northwest Semitic (Phoenician, Hebrew) and South Semitic (Old South Arabian
) language groups. He dated the texts to as early as 2400 BC.
The translations proposed by Mendenhall are often cryptic: "Adze that Yipuyu and Hagara make binding. Verily, in accordance with that which Sara and Ti.pu established we will be surety. Further: with Miku is the pledge." The text with the seven '1' marks, referred to above, is interpreted by Mendenhall as a marriage contract, where the marks are the "signatures" of seven witnesses.
Brian Colless supports Mendenhall's decipherment, and argues that the Megiddo signet-ring confirms it, reading (according to Mendenhall's identifications for the signs): Sealed, the sceptre of Megiddo.
Byblos
Byblos is the Greek name of the Phoenician city Gebal . It is a Mediterranean city in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of present-day Lebanon under the current Arabic name of Jubayl and was also referred to as Gibelet during the Crusades...
. The inscriptions are engraved on bronze plates and spatulas, and carved in stone. They were excavated by Maurice Dunand, from 1928 to 1932, and published in 1945 in his monograph Byblia Grammata. The inscriptions are conventionally dated to the second millennium BC, probably between the 18th
18th century BC
The 18th century BCE was the century which lasted from 1800 BCE to 1701 BCE.-Events:*1800 BCE: Iron age in India*1800 BCE: Beginning of the Nordic Bronze Age in the period system devised by Oscar Montelius....
and 15th
15th century BC
The 15th century BC is a century which lasted from 1500 BC to 1401 BC.- Events :* 1504 BC – 1492 BC: Egypt conquers Nubia and the Levant.* 1500 BC – 1400 BC: The Rigveda was composed around this time....
centuries BC.
Examples of the script have also been discovered in Egypt, Italy, and Megiddo (Garbini, Colless).
The ten inscriptions
The Byblos script is usually written from right to left; word dividers are rarely used. The ten known inscriptions, named a to j in their order of discovery, are:- Two rectangular bronze tablets, documents c (16×11 cm) and d (21×12 cm), with 225 and 459 characters, respectively. Both tablets are inscribed on both sides. The characters were not made by scratching but by hammering chisels into the metal.
- Four bronze "spatulas" (documents b, e, f, and i, with 40, 17, 48, and 84 characters, respectively). These spatulas have a more or less triangular shape with a "flower stem" handle at the sharpest angle of the triangle. They are about 5 by 9 centimeters and 1 mm thick. It is not known what their function was, but Dunand thinks they are "labels" attached to, for example, votive objects. All spatulas are inscribed on both sides, except spatula e (one side only). The writing is relatively sloppy. The text on the back side of spatula f is the only text known that reads from left to right. Spatulae b and i use short vertical strokes as word dividers.
- Inscription on spatula e. The handle of the spatula has broken off; four possible reconstructions of the damaged leftmost character of the inscription are given.
- Four fragments of stone steleSteleA stele , also stela , is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living — inscribed, carved in relief , or painted onto the slab...
s: documents a, g, h, and j, with 116, 37, 7, and 13 characters respectively. The characters are carefully carved, with conspicuous interlinear baselines ("monumental style"). Dunand suggests that fragments h and j originally belonged to the same monument; the chemical composition of the limestone of both seems identical. The text on fragment g is written vertically, in five columns. Block j has vertical strokes, apparently as word dividers.
Related inscriptions
Isolated characters from the Byblos syllabary have also been found on various other objects, such as axes and pottery. Also, a spatula is known which has on the front side a Phoenician inscription and on the back side traces of a Proto-Byblian inscription—about half a dozen proto-Byblian characters are recognizable. The Phoenician inscription on this spatula is dated to the 10th century BC which suggests that Pseudo-hieroglyphs may have remained in use longer than is usually assumed.Also, part of a monumental inscription in stone has been found in Byblos in a script that seems intermediate between the Pseudo-hieroglyphs and the later Phoenician alphabet. 21 characters are visible; most of them are common to both the Pseudo-hieroglyphic script and the Phoenician alphabet, while the few remaining signs are either Pseudo-hieroglyphic or Phoenician (Dunand, Byblia Grammata, pp. 135–138).
Sign list
Each cell in the above table shows a sign (upper left), its Dunand code number (lower left), its frequency (lower right), and indicates (upper right) whether it was used on tablets (T), spatulas (S), or monuments (M). Signs in different cells may actually be writing variants of a single sign; for example, in the top row the signs H6, G17, and E12 are probably the same sign.Number of different signs
The ten main Pseudo-hieroglyphic inscriptions together contain 1046 characters, while the number of 'signs', that is different characters, is given by Dunand as 114. Garbini has noted that the latter number probably is too high, for two reasons. First, Dunand's sign list includes heavily damaged characters for which it is impossible to say whether they really constitute a new sign. Secondly, writing variants clearly existed, for example between the "monumental" style of the steles and the "linear" style of the spatulas and tablets. Taking these variants into account would reduce the total number of signs.Garbini estimates the actual number of signs to be about 90. This number suggests the script to be a syllabary
Syllabary
A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. In a syllabary, there is no systematic similarity between the symbols which represent syllables with the same consonant or vowel...
, where each character was pronounced as a syllable, usually a consonant-plus-vowel combination. If the number of consonants was between 22 (like the later Phoenician alphabet) and 28 (like Ugaritic) and if the number of vowels was three (the original Semitic vowels were a, i, and u) or four to six (if it included an e and o, or a mute vowel), the total number of signs needed would be between 3×22=66 and 6×28=168, which is of the right order of magnitude.
Relation to other scripts
Some signs, for example , look like modified common Egyptian hieroglyphsEgyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...
, but there are many others which do not. Hoch (1990) points out that many of the signs seem to derive from Old Kingdom
Old Kingdom
Old Kingdom is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley .The term itself was...
hieratic
Hieratic
Hieratic refers to a cursive writing system that was used in the provenance of the pharaohs in Egypt and Nubia that developed alongside the hieroglyphic system, to which it is intimately related...
, rather than directly from hieroglyphic. It is known that from as early as 2600 BC Egyptian influence in Byblos was strong: Byblos was the main export harbor for "cedar" wood to Egypt, and consequently there was a considerable Egyptian merchant community in Byblos. Thus it is probable that the syllabary was devised by someone in Byblos who had seen Egyptian hieroglyphs and used them freely as an example to compose a new syllabary that was better adapted to the native language of Byblos—just as in neighbouring Ugarit
Ugarit
Ugarit was an ancient port city in the eastern Mediterranean at the Ras Shamra headland near Latakia, Syria. It is located near Minet el-Beida in northern Syria. It is some seven miles north of Laodicea ad Mare and approximately fifty miles east of Cyprus...
a few centuries later a cuneiform
Cuneiform
Cuneiform can refer to:*Cuneiform script, an ancient writing system originating in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC*Cuneiform , three bones in the human foot*Cuneiform Records, a music record label...
alphabet was devised that was easier to use than the complicated Akkadian
Akkadian language
Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
cuneiform.
Quite many signs resemble letters of the later Phoenician alphabet: . This suggests that the latter was derived in some way from the syllabary. Thus the inscriptions are potentially an important link between the Egyptian hieroglyphic script and the later Semitic abjads derived from Proto-Sinaitic.
Dhorme (1946)
The corpus of inscriptions is generally considered far too small to permit a systematic decipherment on the basis of an internal analysis of the texts. Yet already in 1946, one year after Dunand published the inscriptions, a claim for its decipherment was made, by Édouard Dhorme, a renowned Orientalist and former cryptanalyst from Paris. He noted that on the back of one of the inscribed bronze plates was a much shorter inscription ending in a row of seven nearly identical chevron-like marks, very much like our number "1111111". He assumed this to be a number (probably "seven", though Dhorme took it to be 4×10+3=43 because four marks were slightly larger than the other three), and guessed that the backside inscription as a whole contained a dating of the inscription.The word directly before the seven "1" marks consists of four different signs: . The first (rightmost) sign, damaged but recognizable, and the leftmost sign resemble the letters 'b' and 't', respectively, of the later Phoenician alphabet. Dhorme now interpreted the whole word ('b-..-..-t') as Phoenician "b(a) + š(a)-n-t", "in the year (of)" (Hebrew bišnat), which gave him the phonetic meanings of all four signs. These he substituted in the rest of the inscriptions, thereby looking for recognizable parts of more Phoenician words that would give him the reading of more signs. In the end he proposed transcriptions for 75 signs.
Sobelman (1961)
Harvey Sobelman did not try to find phonetic values for the various signs, but instead tried to determine word boundaries and find grammatical patterns, using linguistics techniques. Daniels' judgement is that Sobelman's "result should be taken into account in all future work on these texts."Martin (1962)
Malachi MartinMalachi Martin
Malachi Brendan Martin Ph.D. was a Catholic priest, theologian, writer on the Catholic Church, and professor at the Vatican's Pontifical Biblical Institute. He held three doctorates and was the sole author of sixteen books covering religious and geopolitical topics, which were published in eight...
read the body of characters as an alphabet and categorized the various signs into 27 "classes". After publishing "part one" of his decipherment, in two volumes, he never published a sequel.
Mendenhall (1985)
In 1985 a new translation attempt was published by George E. MendenhallGeorge E. Mendenhall
George Emery Mendenhall is an author and Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Department of Near Eastern Studies....
from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
. Many signs that reappear in the later Phoenician alphabet were assumed by Mendenhall to have a similar phonetic value. For example, the sign which in Phoenician has the value g (Hebrew gimel), is assumed to have the phonetic value ga. A sign which resembles an Egyptian hieroglyph meaning "King of Upper Egypt" is interpreted as "mulku" (Semitic for 'regal'; compare Hebrew mèlekh, 'king'), which furnished the phonetic reading mu. The latter example illustrates that Mendenhall extensively made use of the acrophonic principle, where the phonetic value of a syllabic sign is assumed to be equal to the initial sound of the (Semitic) word for the object that is depicted by the sign.
Mendenhall took the language to be very early ("Old Coastal") Semitic, from before the split between the Northwest Semitic (Phoenician, Hebrew) and South Semitic (Old South Arabian
Old South Arabian
Old South Arabian is the term used to describe four extinct, closely related languages spoken in the far southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula. There were a number of other Sayhadic languages , of which very little evidence survived, however...
) language groups. He dated the texts to as early as 2400 BC.
The translations proposed by Mendenhall are often cryptic: "Adze that Yipuyu and Hagara make binding. Verily, in accordance with that which Sara and Ti.pu established we will be surety. Further: with Miku is the pledge." The text with the seven '1' marks, referred to above, is interpreted by Mendenhall as a marriage contract, where the marks are the "signatures" of seven witnesses.
Brian Colless supports Mendenhall's decipherment, and argues that the Megiddo signet-ring confirms it, reading (according to Mendenhall's identifications for the signs): Sealed, the sceptre of Megiddo.
Jan Best (2009)
Jan Best, a Dutch scientist, thinks to have deciphered the Byblos syllabary successfully after 40 years of research.Literature
- Best, Jan Het Byblosschrift ontcijferd - In het voetspoor van Willem Glasbergen 2010 (ISBN 9789035136007)
- Best, Jan Suruya in the Byblos Script > Corpus, Ugarit-Forschungen 40 (2009), 135-41
- Best, Jan Breaking the Code of the Byblos Script, Ugarit-Forschungen 40 (2009), 129-33
- Colless, Brian, "The Canaanite Syllabary", Ancient Near Eastern Studies 35 (1998), 26-46.
- Daniels, P.T., 'The Byblos syllabary', in: P.T. Daniels & W. Bright (eds.), The World's Writing Systems (New York/Oxford, 1996).
- Dhorme, Édouard, 'Déchiffrement des inscriptions pseudohiéroglyphiques de Byblos', in: Syria 25 (1946–1948).
- Dunand, Maurice, 'Spatule de bronze avec épigraphe phénicienne du XIIIe [actually: Xe] siècle', in: Bulletin du Musée de Beyrouth 2 (1938) 99–107. (Spatula with traces of Proto-Byblian writing)
- Garbini, Giovanni, [review of Mendenhall's book], in: Rivista di Studi Fenici 16 (1988), 129-131.
- Martin, Malachi, The Scribal Character of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Vol. 1, Bibliothèque du Muséon 44, Publications Universitaires, Louvain, 1958
- Martin, Malachi, The Scribal Character of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Vol. 2, Bibliothèque du Muséon 45, Publications Universitaires, Louvain, 1958
- Martin, Malachi, 'Revision and reclassification of the Proto-Byblian signs', in: Orientalia 31 (1962) 250-271, 339-363.
- Mendenhall, George E., The Syllabic Inscriptions from Byblos, Beirut, The American University (1985), Syracuse University Press (1986), ISBN 0-8156-6077-4.
- Sobelman, Harvey, 'The Proto-Byblian inscriptions: a fresh approach', in: Journal of Semitic Studies 6 (1961) 226-245.
- Thiollet, Jean-PierreJean-Pierre ThiolletJean-Pierre Thiollet is a French writer and journalist. He usually lives in Paris and is the author of numerous books.Since 2007, he has been a member of the World Grand Family of Lebanon ....
, Je m'appelle Byblos, H & D (2005), ISBN 2-914266-04-9.