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The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the 4th century BC, in the Persian Achaemenid administration of Bactria and Sogdiana. [8] The widespread usage of Achaemenid Aramaic in the Middle East led to the gradual adoption of the Aramaic alphabet for writing Hebrew.
The alphabet is descended from the Aramaic alphabet. In turn, a cursive form of Nabataean developed into the Arabic alphabet from the 4th century, [3] which is why Nabataean's letterforms are intermediate between the more northerly Semitic scripts (such as the Aramaic-derived Hebrew) and those of Arabic. Inscription in the Nabataean script.
The other main writing system used for Aramaic was developed by Christian communities: a cursive form known as the Syriac alphabet. A highly modified form of the Aramaic alphabet, the Mandaic alphabet, is used by the Mandaeans. [44] In addition to these writing systems, certain derivatives of the Aramaic alphabet were used in ancient times by ...
The Palmyrene alphabet was a historical Semitic alphabet used to write Palmyrene Aramaic. It was used between 100 BCE and 300 CE in Palmyra in the Syrian desert. The oldest surviving Palmyrene inscription dates to 44 BCE. [ 2 ]
The earliest Hebrew writing discovered so far, dating back to the 10th century BCE, was found at Khirbet Qeiyafa in July 2008 by Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel. [ 10 ] [ 11 ] [ 12 ] The 15 cm x 16.5 cm (5.9 in x 6.5 in) trapezoid pottery sherd ( ostracon ) has five lines of text written in ink written in the Proto-Canaanite alphabet (the ...
The Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II was the first of this type of inscription found anywhere in the Levant (modern Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria). [1] [2]The Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, also known as Northwest Semitic inscriptions, [3] are the primary extra-Biblical source for understanding of the societies and histories of the ancient Phoenicians, Hebrews and Arameans.
The Aramaic alphabet, which evolved from the Phoenician in the 7th century BC, to become the official script of the Achaemenid Empire, appears to be the ancestor of nearly all the modern alphabets of Asia: The Arabic alphabet descended from Aramaic via the Nabataean alphabet of what is now southern Jordan.
A similar "square Aramaic script" is still used for contemporary western dialects of Aramaic (Western Neo-Aramaic). This "square" variant of Aramaic developed into the Hebrew alphabet proper during the Second Temple period, in a process that was not complete before the 1st century CE; for example, the letter samekh developed its closed or ...