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News Release
Office of News and Information
Johns Hopkins University
3003 N. Charles Street, Suite 100
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-3843
Phone: (410) 516-7160 / Fax (410) 516-5251
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November 22, 1999
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT:
Leslie Rice,
lnr@jhu.edu
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Alphabet Originated Centuries Earlier
Than Previously Thought
Sometime during the beginning of the second millennium B.C., long
before
ancient biblical times, a traveler passing through a desert
valley of what
is now southern Egypt, stopped at a rock and inscribed on it his
name, his
title and probably a short prayer for safe passage.
The discovery of this traveler's ancient calling card, and
another one
similar to it, indicates that the first alphabet -- from which
all modern
alphabets have evolved -- is centuries older than previously
believed. It
was probably invented in Egypt, not, as previously thought, in
the Levant
Region, what is now Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Until now,
scholars believed
that the forefather of written Hebrew, Arabic, Greek -- virtually
all
alphabets, including ours -- was invented in the 1700s B.C. The
inscriptions in Egypt now point towards an origin in the 1900s
B.C.
The significance of the discovery was determined by a team of
scholars from
The Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, Princeton
Theological
Seminary and the West Semitic Research Project in California. The
group
presented its findings at an American Oriental Society conference
Nov. 22.
"These inscriptions are for epigraphers what Lucy was for
palaeontologists," said Kyle McCarter Jr., the William Foxwell
Albright
Chair in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern
Studies at Johns Hopkins
University and an expert in epigraphy, the study of ancient
writings (pictured at right).
The inscriptions were discovered in the summer of 1998 in a
desert valley
called, in Arabic, "The Valley of Horrors." The finder was
Egyptologist
John Darnell, an assistant professor at Yale and former Hopkins
undergrad.
Darnell, who stumbled across the rock while surveying the area,
was
unfamiliar with the writings. When he returned to the United
States, he
brought photos of them to Chip Dobbs-Allsopp, who studies the
writings of
the Iron Age, or ancient Biblical times.
Dobbs-Allsopp, who received his graduate degree at Hopkins and is
now an
assistant professor at Princeton Theological Seminary,
immediately
suspected that these inscriptions predated anything seen before.
He
contacted McCarter, his mentor at Hopkins and one of the few
people in the
world who can decipher archaic alphabetic inscriptions. McCarter,
who has
translated some of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other artifacts, has
spent much
of his career tracking down the origins of the alphabet.
"Until now, we believed that the alphabet had been invented by
Semitic-speaking people of the Levant Valley, who were inspired
by the
Egyptian hieroglyphics," McCarter said. "This discovery suggests
that it
was invented at least two centuries earlier that we believed. It
also tells
us that the alphabet was probably invented in Egypt by some of
the many
Semitic-speaking people who lived or worked in Egypt."
Last summer, accompanied by Egyptian soldiers for protection, a
team of
scientists including Darnell, Dobbs-Allsopp and Bruce Zuckerman
and Marilyn
Lundberg of the West Semitic Research Project of the University
of Southern
California, visited the desert valley site to record the
inscriptions. The
area can be dangerous; it is an inhospitable, sparsely populated
region in
southern Egypt. Especially threatening are some of its
inhabitants: deadly
snakes and scorpions and desert animals that come out at night.
The group
worked there for several days in 120 degree heat, taking high
resolution
photographs and documenting the inscriptions.
Translating the inscriptions is tricky, said McCarter.
"The earliest examples of a writing system can never quite be
read; it
isn't until later when the system becomes conventionalized that
the chances
of a clear reading become more likely," he said. "However, it
does bear
some clear elements of Semitic writing, like the words ‘god' and
‘chief'
and a few others. With our limited understanding of the words,
there is a
fear of forcing an interpretation of the inscription. But I think
we can
safely say that it is an inscription of the two men's personal
names, their
titles and possibly a prayer to a local god."
McCarter believes that a better translation will come, however,
as the
early alphabet becomes better understood and more examples are
found.
Note to
Reporters
Print or high-resolution digitalized images of the inscriptions
available upon request. Contact Leslie Rice. Professor McCarter
will be available for interviews beginning Tuesday, Nov. 23.
Related Web
Site
West Semitic Research Project of the University of Southern
California (special photography techniques used to capture
images of inscription)
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