The Paleo-Hebrew script ( he, הכתב העברי הקדום), also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in

Canaanite inscriptions Canaanite may refer to: *Canaan and Canaanite people, Semitic-speaking region and civilization in the Ancient Near East *Canaanite languages *Canaanite religion *Canaanites (movement) Canaanism was a cultural and ideological movement founded i ...

from the region of biblical

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

and Judah. It is considered to be the script used to record the original texts of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Samaritan script The Samaritan script is used by the Samaritans for religious writings, including the Samaritan Pentateuch, writings in Samaritan Hebrew, and for commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic. Samaritan is a direc ...

, as the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

stated that the Hebrew ancient script was still used by the Samaritans. The Talmud described it as the "Libona'a script" ( he, לִיבּוֹנָאָה ''Lībōnāʾā''), translated by some as "Lebanon script". Use of the term "Paleo-Hebrew alphabet" is due to a 1954 suggestion by

Solomon Birnbaum Solomon Asher Birnbaum, also ''Salomo Birnbaum'' ( yi, שלמה בירנבוים ''Shloyme Birnboym'', December 24, 1891 in Vienna – December 28, 1989 in Toronto) was a Yiddish linguist and Hebrew palaeographer. apply the term Phoenician to the script of the Hebrews is hardly suitable". The first Paleo-Hebrew inscription identified in modern times was the '' Shebna inscription'', found in 1870, and then referred to as "two large ancient Hebrew inscriptions in Phoenician letters".Clermont-Ganneau, 1899
Archaeological Researches In Palestine 1873–1874
Vol 1, p. 305: "The most important of these discoveries is certainly that which I had the good fortune to make of two large ancient Hebrew inscriptions in Phoenician letters... I may observe, by the way, that the discovery of these two texts was made long before that of the inscription in the tunnel, and therefore, though people in general do not seem to recognise this fact, it was the first which enabled us to behold an authentic specimen of Hebrew monumental epigraphy of the period of the Kings of Judah." Fewer than 2,000 inscriptions are known today, of which the vast majority comprise just a single letter or word. The earliest known examples of Paleo-Hebrew writing date to the 10th century BCE. Like the

Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization. The Phoenician al ...

, it is a slight regional variant and an immediate continuation of the Proto-Canaanite script, which was used throughout

Canaan Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...

in the Late Bronze Age. Phoenician,

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

, and all of their sister

Canaanite languages The Canaanite languages, or Canaanite dialects, are one of the three subgroups of the Northwest Semitic languages, the others being Aramaic and Ugaritic, all originating in the Levant and Mesopotamia. They are attested in Canaanite inscriptio ...

were largely indistinguishable dialects before that time. The Paleo-Hebrew script is an

abjad An abjad (, ar, أبجد; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with other alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vow ...

of 22 consonantal letters, exactly as the other Canaanite scripts from the period. By the 5th century BCE, among

Judea Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and the modern-day name of the mountainous so ...

ns the alphabet had been mostly replaced by the

Aramaic alphabet The ancient Aramaic alphabet was adapted by Arameans from the Phoenician alphabet and became a distinct script by the 8th century BC. It was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian tribes throughout the Fert ...

as officially used in the

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...

. The " Jewish square-script" variant now known simply as the

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewi ...

evolved directly out of the Aramaic script by about the 3rd century BCE (although some letter shapes did not become standard until the 1st century CE). By contrast, the Samaritan alphabet, as used by

Samaritans Samaritans (; ; he, שומרונים, translit=Šōmrōnīm, lit=; ar, السامريون, translit=as-Sāmiriyyūn) are an ethnoreligious group who originate from the ancient Israelites. They are native to the Levant and adhere to Samarit ...

, is an immediate continuation of the Proto-Hebrew script without intermediate non-Israelite evolutionary stages. There is also some continued use of the old Hebrew script in Jewish religious contexts down to the 1st century BCE, notably in the Paleo-Leviticus text found in the

Dead Sea scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...

History

Origins

The Paleo-Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets developed in the wake of the Bronze Age collapse, out of their immediate predecessor script Proto-Canaanite (Late Proto-Sinaitic) during the 13th to 12th centuries BCE, and earlier Proto-Sinaitic scripts. Gezer calendar close up

The earliest known inscription in the Paleo-Hebrew script is the

Zayit Stone Kezayit, k'zayit, or kezayis () is a Talmudic unit of volume approximately equal to the size of an average olive. The word itself literally means "like an olive." The rabbis differ on the precise definition of the unit: * Rabbeinu Yitzchak (the ...

discovered on a wall at

Tel Zayit Tel Zayit ( he, תל זית, ar, Tell Zeita, Kirbat Zeita al Kharab) is an archaeological tell in the Shephelah, or lowlands, of Israel, about 30 km east of Ashkelon. History The site, roughly , shows evidence of human settlement throughout ...

, in the Beth Guvrin Valley in the lowlands of ancient

in 2005, about southwest of Jerusalem. The 22 letters were carved on one side of the stone, which resembles a bowl on the other. The find is attributed to the mid-10th century BCE. The so-called Ophel inscription is of a similar age, but difficult to interpret, and may be classified as either Proto-Canaanite or as Paleo-Hebrew. The Gezer calendar is of uncertain date, but may also still date to the 10th century BCE. The script on the Zayit Stone and Gezer Calendar are an earlier form than the classical Paleo-Hebrew of the 8th century and later; this early script is almost identical to the early Phoenician script on the 9th-century

Ahiram sarcophagus The Ahiram sarcophagus (also spelled Ahirom, in Phoenician) was the sarcophagus of a Phoenician King of Byblos (c. 850 BC), discovered in 1923 by the French excavator Pierre Montet in tomb V of the royal necropolis of Byblos. The sarcophagus ...

inscription. By the 8th century, a number of regional characteristics begin to separate the script into a number of national alphabets, including the Israelite (Israel and Judah), Moabite (Moab and Ammon), Edomite, Phoenician and Old Aramaic scripts. Linguistic features of the

Moabite language The Moabite language, also known as the Moabite dialect, is an extinct sub-language or dialect of the Canaanite languages, themselves a branch of Northwest Semitic languages, formerly spoken in the region described in the Bible as Moab (modern d ...

(rather than generic Northwest Semitic) are visible in the

Mesha Stele The Mesha Stele, also known as the Moabite Stone, is a stele dated around 840 BCE containing a significant Canaanite inscription in the name of King Mesha of Moab (a kingdom located in modern Jordan). Mesha tells how Chemosh, the god of Moab, ...

inscription, commissioned around 840 BCE by King Mesha of Moab. Similarly, the Tel Dan Stele, dated approximately 810 BCE, is written in Old Aramaic, dating from a period when Dan had already fallen into the orbit of Damascus. Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon

The oldest inscriptions identifiable as

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of t ...

have long been limited to the 8th century BCE. In 2008, however, a potsherd (ostracon) bearing an inscription was excavated at

Khirbet Qeiyafa Khirbet Qeiyafa ( ar, خربة قيافة), also known as Elah Fortress and in Hebrew as Horbat Qayafa ( he, חורבת קייאפה), is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley and dated to the first half of the 10th ...

which has since been interpreted as representing a recognizably Hebrew inscription dated to as early as the 10th century BCE. The argument identifying the text as Hebrew relies on the use of vocabulary. From the 8th century onward, Hebrew epigraphy becomes more common, showing the gradual spread of literacy among the people of the

Kingdom of Israel The Kingdom of Israel may refer to any of the historical kingdoms of ancient Israel, including: Fully independent (c. 564 years) *Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy) (1047–931 BCE), the legendary kingdom established by the Israelites and uniting ...

and the

Kingdom of Judah The Kingdom of Judah ( he, , ''Yəhūdā''; akk, 𒅀𒌑𒁕𒀀𒀀 ''Ya'údâ'' 'ia-ú-da-a-a'' arc, 𐤁𐤉𐤕𐤃𐤅𐤃 ''Bēyt Dāwīḏ'', " House of David") was an Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. C ...

; the oldest portions of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization. The Phoenician al ...

In 1855 a Phoenician inscription in 22 lines was found among the ruins of

Sidon Sidon ( ; he, צִידוֹן, ''Ṣīḏōn'') known locally as Sayda or Saida ( ar, صيدا ''Ṣaydā''), is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate, of which it is the capital, on the Mediterranean coast. ...

. Each line contained about 40 or 50 characters. A facsimile copy of the writing was published in United States Magazine in July 1855. The inscription was on the lid of a large stone sarcophagus carved in fine Egyptian style. The writing was primarily a genealogical history of a king of Sidon buried in the sarcophagus.-->

Use in the Israelite kingdoms

The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was in common use in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah throughout the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. During the 6th century BCE, the time of the

Babylonian exile The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon, the capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following their defeat ...

, the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was gradually replaced by the use of the Imperial

. The letters of Imperial Aramaic were again given shapes characteristic for writing Hebrew during the

Second Temple period The Second Temple period in Jewish history lasted approximately 600 years (516 BCE - 70 CE), during which the Second Temple existed. It started with the return to Zion and the construction of the Second Temple, while it ended with the First Je ...

, developing into the "square shape" of the

. The

, who remained in the Land of Israel, continued to use their variant of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, called the

Samaritan script The Samaritan script is used by the Samaritans for religious writings, including the Samaritan Pentateuch, writings in Samaritan Hebrew, and for commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic. Samaritan is a direc ...

. After the fall of the Persian Empire, Jews used both scripts before settling on the Assyrian form. The Paleo-Hebrew script evolved by developing numerous cursive features, the lapidary features of the Phoenician alphabet being ever less pronounced with the passage of time. The aversion of the lapidary script may indicate that the custom of erecting stelae by the kings and offering votive inscriptions to the deity was not widespread in Israel. Even the engraved inscriptions from the 8th century exhibit elements of the cursive style, such as the shading, which is a natural feature of pen-and-ink writing. Examples of such inscriptions include the Siloam inscription, numerous tomb inscriptions from

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

, the Ketef Hinnom scrolls, a fragmentary Hebrew inscription on an ivory which was taken as war spoils (probably from

Samaria Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first ...

) to

Nimrud Nimrud (; syr, ܢܢܡܪܕ ar, النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah ( ar, السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a m ...

, the

Arad ostraca Arad or ARAD may refer to: People * Arad (given name) * Arad (surname) Places and jurisdictions Bahrain * Arad, Bahrain, a village in Al Muharraq Governorate * Arad Fort, located on Arad shore * Arad Island, a former member of the Bahrain I ...

dating to the 6th-century BCE, the hundreds of 8th to 6th-century Hebrew seals from various sites, and the Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus scroll discovered near '' Tel Qumran''. The most developed cursive script is found on the 18 Lachish ostraca, letters sent by an officer to the governor of Lachish just before the destruction of the

First Temple Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (, , ), was the Temple in Jerusalem between the 10th century BC and . According to the Hebrew Bible, it was commissioned by Solomon in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherited by th ...

in 586 BCE. A slightly earlier (''circa'' 620 BCE) but similar script is found on an ostracon excavated at Mesad Hashavyahu, containing a petition for redress of grievances (an appeal by a field worker to the fortress's governor regarding the confiscation of his cloak, which the writer considers to have been unjust).

Decline and late survival

After the Babylonian capture of Judea, when most of the nobles were taken into exile, the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet continued to be used by the people who remained. One example of such writings are the 6th-century BCE jar handles from Gibeon, on which the names of winegrowers are inscribed. Beginning from the 5th century BCE onward, the Aramaic language and script became an official means of communication. Paleo-Hebrew was still used by scribes and others. The Paleo-Hebrew script was retained for some time as an archaizing or conservative mode of writing. It is found in certain texts of the

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

among the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...

, dated to the 2nd to 1st centuries BCE: manuscripts 4Q12, 6Q1: Genesis. 4Q22: Exodus. 1Q3, 2Q5, 4Q11, 4Q45, 4Q46, 6Q2, and the Leviticus scroll (

11QpaleoLev Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll, known also as 11QpaleoLev, is an ancient text preserved in one of the Qumran group of caves, and which provides a rare glimpse of the script used formerly by the nation of Israel in writing Torah scrolls during its ...

). In some Qumran documents, the tetragrammaton name of the Israelite deity,

YHWH The Tetragrammaton (; ), or Tetragram, is the four-letter Hebrew theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left (in Hebrew), are ''yodh'', '' he'', '' waw'', and ...

, is written in Paleo-Hebrew while the rest of the text is rendered in the adopted Aramaic square script that became today’s normative Jewish Hebrew script. The vast majority of the Hasmonean coinage, as well as the coins of the

First Jewish–Roman War The First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), sometimes called the Great Jewish Revolt ( he, המרד הגדול '), or The Jewish War, was the first of three major rebellions by the Jews against the Roman Empire, fought in Roman-controlled ...

and Bar Kokhba's revolt, bears Paleo-Hebrew legends. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet fell completely out of use among Jews only after 135 CE.

Legacy

Samaritan alphabet

The paleo-Hebrew alphabet continued to be used by the

and over time developed into the Samaritan alphabet. The Samaritans have continued to use the script for writing both Hebrew and Aramaic texts until the present day. A comparison of the earliest Samaritan inscriptions and the medieval and modern Samaritan manuscripts clearly indicates that the Samaritan script is a static script which was used mainly as a book hand.

Babylonian Talmud

The Talmudic sages did not share a uniform stance on the subject of Paleo-Hebrew. Some stated that Paleo-Hebrew was the original script used by the Israelites at the time of the Exodus,

Sanhedrin The Sanhedrin ( Hebrew and Aramaic: סַנְהֶדְרִין; Greek: , '' synedrion'', 'sitting together,' hence ' assembly' or 'council') was an assembly of either 23 or 71 elders (known as " rabbis" after the destruction of the Second Temp ...

21b while others believed that Paleo-Hebrew merely served as a stopgap in a time when the ostensibly original script the ( Assyrian Script) was lost. According to both opinions,

Ezra the Scribe Ezra (; he, עֶזְרָא, '; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (, ') and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe ('' sofer'') and priest ('' kohen''). In Greco-Latin Ezra is called Esdras ( grc-gre, Ἔσδρ ...

(c. 500 BCE) introduced, or reintroduced the Assyrian script to be used as the primary alphabet for the

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserve ...

. The arguments given for both opinions are rooted in Jewish scripture and/or tradition. A third opinion in the

states that the script never changed altogether. It would seem that the sage who expressed this opinion did not believe that Paleo-Hebrew ever existed, despite the strong arguments supporting it. His stance is rooted in a scriptural verse, which makes reference to the shape of the letter vav. The sage argues further that, given the commandment to copy a Torah scroll directly from another, the script could not conceivably have been modified at any point. This third opinion was accepted by some early Jewish scholars, and rejected by others, partially because it was permitted to write the Torah in Greek.

Contemporary use

Use of Proto-Hebrew in modern Israel is negligible, but it is found occasionally in nostalgic or pseudo-archaic examples, e.g. on the ₪1 coin ( "Judea") and in the logo of the Israeli town Nahariyah (

Deuteronomy 33 33 may refer to: *33 (number) *33 BC *AD 33 *1933 *2033 Music * ''33'' (Luis Miguel album) (2003) * ''33'' (Southpacific album) (1998) * ''33'' (Wanessa album) (2016) *"33 'GOD'", a 2016 song by Bon Iver * "Thirty-Three" (song), a 1995 song by th ...

:24 "Let

Asher Asher ( he, אָשֵׁר ''’Āšēr''), in the Book of Genesis, was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Zilpah (Jacob's eighth son) and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Asher. Name The text of the Torah states that the name of ''As ...

be blessed with children").

Archaeology

In 2019, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) unearthed a 2,600 year-old seal impression, while conducting excavations at the City of David, containing paleo-Hebrew script, and which is thought to have belonged to a certain "Nathan-Melech," an official in King Josiah's court.

Table of letters

Phoenician or Paleo-Hebrew characters were never standardised and are found in numerous variant shapes. A general tendency of more cursive writing can be observed over the period of c. 800 BCE to 600 BCE. After 500 BCE, it is common to distinguish the script variants by names such as "Samaritan", "Aramaic", etc. There is no difference in "Paleo-Hebrew" vs. "Phoenician" letter shapes. The names are applied depending on the language of the inscription, or if that cannot be determined, of the coastal (Phoenician) vs. highland (Hebrew) association (c.f. the

abecedary). , ʾālep , head of cattle ( אלף) , ʾ , 𓃾 , , א , - , Phoenician beth

, } , bēt , house ( בית) , b , 𓉐 , , ב , - , Phoenician gimel

, } , gīmel , camel (גמל) , g , 𓌙 , , ג , - , Phoenician daleth

, } , dālet , door ( דלת) , d , 𓇯 , , ד , - , Phoenician he

, } , hē , jubilation/window , h , 𓀠? , , ה , - , Phoenician waw

, } ,

wāw Waw/Vav ( "hook") is the sixth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''wāw'' , Aramaic ''waw'' , Hebrew '' waw/vav'' , Syriac ''waw'' ܘ and Arabic '' wāw'' (sixth in abjadi order; 27th in modern Arabic order). It repres ...

, hook ( וו) , w , 𓏲 , , ו , - , Phoenician zayin

, } , zayin , weapon ( זין) , z , 𓏭 , , ז , - , Phoenician heth

, } , ḥēt(?) , courtyard/threadThe letters he and ḥēt continue three Proto-Sinaitic letters, ''ḥasir'' "courtyard", ''hillul'' "jubilation" and ''ḫayt'' "thread". The shape of ''ḥēt'' continues ''ḥasir'' "courtyard", but the name continues ''ḫayt'' "thread". The shape of ''he'' continues ''hillul'' "jubilation" but see: He (letter)#Origins. , ḥ , 𓉗/𓈈? , , ח , - , Phoenician teth

, } , ṭēt , wheel (?) , ṭ , ? , , ט , - , Phoenician yodh

, } , yōd , arm, hand ( יד) , y , 𓂝 , , י , - , Phoenician kaph

, } , kāp , palm of a hand ( כף) , k , 𓂧 , , כ, ך , - , Phoenician lamedh

, } , lāmed , goad ( למד) , l , 𓌅 , , ל , - , Phoenician mem

, } , mēm , water ( מים) , m , 𓈖 , , מ, ם , - , Phoenician nun

, } , nūn , fish ( נון) , n , 𓆓 , , נ, ן , - , Phoenician samekh

, } , sāmek , pillar, support ( סמך) , s , 𓊽 , , ס , - , Phoenician ayin

, } , ʿayin , eye ( עין) , ʿ , 𓁹 , , ע , - , Phoenician pe

, } , pē , mouth ( פה) , p , 𓂋 , , פ, ף , - , Phoenician sade

, } , ṣādē , ? , ṣ , ? , , צ, ץ , - , Phoenician qoph

, } , qōp , ?"The old explanation, which has again been revived by Halévy, is that it denotes an 'ape,' the character Q being taken to represent an ape with its tail hanging down. It may also be referred to a Talmudic root which would signify an 'aperture' of some kind, as the 'eye of a needle,' ..Lenormant adopts the more usual explanation that the word means a 'knot'." Isaac Taylor, History of the Alphabet: Semitic Alphabets, Part 1, 2003. , q , ? , , ק , - , Phoenician res

, } , rēš , head ( ראש) , r , 𓁶 , , ר , - , Phoenician sin

, } , šīn , tooth ( שין) , š , 𓌓 , , ש , - , Phoenician taw

, } , tāw , mark, sign ( תו) , t , 𓏴 , , ת

Unicode

The Unicode block Phoenician (U+10900–U+1091F) is intended for the representation of, apart from the

, text in Palaeo-Hebrew, Archaic Phoenician, Early Aramaic, Late Phoenician cursive, Phoenician papyri, Siloam Hebrew, Hebrew seals, Ammonite, Moabite, and Punic. Shiloach

References

External links

Hebrew Alphabet
at the '' Jewish Encyclopedia''
History of the Aleph-Bet
at the

Jewish Virtual Library Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

Aramaic/Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
at Omniglot
Unicode Modern/Paleo-Hebrew conversion tool

Paleo-Hebrew Abjad font (the current version of the font is 1.1.0)

Open-source Unicode Hebrew Fonts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paleo-Hebrew alphabet Ancient Jewish history Canaanite writing systems Hebrew alphabet Language and mysticism Obsolete writing systems Proto-Sinaitic script Right-to-left writing systems