Evans, Arthur J.: Scripta minoa: the written documents of minoan Crete with special reference to the archives of Knossos (Band 1): The hieroglyphic and primitive linear classes (Oxford, 1909)

82

SCRIPTA MINOA

Both North
and South
Semitic
forms go
back to
common
source.

Philistine
Gaza

natural dis-
tributing
point.

Attempts
to find
source of
Phoenician
alphabet;
cuneiform
theory.

The natural inference from these phenomena is that both the North and the South
Semitic characters, as we know them, go back to an earlier and more extensive
system, from which they each, to a certain extent, have made independent selections.
Even when the characters radically correspond, their differences can in many cases
only be accounted for by supposing that in each case they have diverged from
a common prototype on their own particular lines.

In what area, then, are we to seek this parent stock? The most natural meeting-
place of the North and South Semitic groups would be Gaza, the principal Medi-
terranean outlet of the South Arabian trade routes, and the point where they debouch
upon the highway leading from Northern Canaan and Syria to Egypt.

It will be seen that these converging lines of evidence at any rate project the
existence of Semitic letters appreciably beyond the date of Mesha. If we may
assume that they came into existence about the eleventh or twelfth century
before our era, their first .appearance would correspond with the most flourishing
period of the Philistine settlement. And in this connexion it is especially to be borne
in mind that Gaza, the most natural meeting-place of the North and South Semitic
elements, was in the occupation of the Cherethim, who, there is every reason to believe,
were colonists from Minoan Crete.

Among the various theories for explaining the origin of the Phoenician alphabet
that which would derive its letters from Assyrian cuneiform types is perhaps of all
the most arbitrary and procrustean. This view, originally put forward by Dr. Deecke1
(following on his analogous attempt to explain the origin of the Cypriote syllabary),
has since been revived, in a somewhat variant form, by Dr. Peiser.2 Admittedly,
many of the cuneiform combinations chosen for comparison were already obsolete at
the time the Semitic alphabet seems to have arisen, but even with the aid of this
eclectic process it can hardly be said that in any single case has a real correspondence
been made out. On the other hand, the recovery of the. quasi-pictorial prototypes
of the original Babylonian characters has led to an attempt on Hommel's part to
derive the Phoenician letters from this source. But, apart from the striking absence of
resemblance between the Phoenician and the earliest known Babylonian forms of the
objects answering to their names, the discrepancy of date, which must extend at least to
two or three millennia, would be alone fatal to this theory. Nevertheless, owing mainly
to the fact that the names of a certain number of the Phoenician letters answer to
those of the Babylonian series, there has been a persistent inclination in recent years to
seek a connexion on that side.3 Delitsch, for instance, lays stress on the fact that out
of the twenty-two original Phoenician letters the names of about half correspond with

' ' Der Urspnmg der altsemitischen aus der neuassy-
rischen Keilschrift* (Z. D. M. G., xsxi (1877), pp. 103
seqq.). Dr. Deecke cites certain hieratic Assyrian signs of
a linear character, but their forms are very unconvincing.

* ' Das semitische Alphabet' [Milth. d. wrderasiat. Ges.,
1900, H. 2). Dr. Peiser, however, puts forward the hypo-
thesis with the wise caution, that'... binnen kurzem die
pragriechischen Zeichen zwingen werden, die ganze

Frage wiedemm von anderen Gesichtspunkten aus zu

s F. Hommel, Gesch. Babyhnieiis mid Assyriens, p. 54.
The crude method of Hommel's comparisons is criticized
by Delitsch, Enlstehung des dlksten Schrift^/stems, pp. 222,
223, who, however, subsequently makes some suggestions
of his own (op. cit, pp. 228 seqq.) that tend in the same
direction.