(b) a hypothetical ancestor of the Phoenician script before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BC, with an undefined affinity to
Proto-Sinaitic.[2] No extant "Phoenician" inscription is older than 1000 BC.[3] The
Phoenician,
Hebrew, and other
Canaanite dialects were largely indistinguishable before that time.[4]
Proto-Canaanite, also referred to as Proto-Canaan, Old Canaanite, or Canaanite,[5] is the name given to either a script ancestral to the Phoenician or
Paleo-Hebrew script with undefined affinity to Proto-Sinaitic,[6] or to the Proto-Sinaitic script (
c. 16th century BC), when found in Canaan.[7][8][9][10]
While no extant inscription in the Phoenician alphabet is older than c. 1050 BC,[11] Proto-Canaanite is used for the early alphabets as used during the 13th and 12th centuries BC in
Phoenicia.[12] However, the
Phoenician,
Hebrew, and other
Canaanite dialects were largely indistinguishable before the 11th century BC, and the writing system is essentially identical.[13]
A possible example of Proto-Canaanite, the inscription on the
Ophel pithos, was found in 2012 on a pottery storage jar during the excavations of the south wall of the Temple Mount by Israeli archaeologist
Eilat Mazar in Jerusalem. Inscribed on the pot are some big letters about an inch high, of which only five are complete, and traces of perhaps three additional letters written in Proto-Canaanite script.[8]
Another possible Proto-Canaanite inscription is the
Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon, a 15-by-16.5-centimetre (5.9 in × 6.5 in)
ostracon believed to be the longest Proto-Canaanite inscription ever found.[14]
^A
glyph for ś has been found in the Canaanite Lachish Comb inscription, though no such glyph has been found in Proto-Sinaitic, and its origin hasn't been discovered.
^Naveh, Joseph (1987), "Proto-Canaanite, Archaic Greek, and the Script of the Aramaic Text on the Tell Fakhariyah Statue", in Miller; et al. (eds.), Ancient Israelite Religion.
^John F. Healey, The Early Alphabet University of California Press, 1990,
ISBN978-0-520-07309-8, p. 18.
^Naveh, Joseph (1987), "Proto-Canaanite, Archaic Greek, and the Script of the Aramaic Text on the Tell Fakhariyah Statue", in Miller; et al. (eds.), Ancient Israelite Religion.