DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.806#0101
CRETAN PHILISTINES AND THE PHOENICIAN ALPHABET 87
a 'wheel' sign, but Semitic etymologies have failed to throw any light on its TM-iUla
name. No Babylonian or Egyptian hieroglyphic derivation can be claimed for it Jfinoa°
with any show of probability. It is also absent from the conventionalized picto- 'wheel'
graphy of Crete, which belongs to the period before wheel traffic was known to SIgn'
the Aegean world; though this coincidence by itself is not conclusive, since a primitive
solar sign consisting of a cross within a circle is widely diffused. But, with the first
advent of the advanced linear script, e becomes one of the commonest of the Minoan
characters. It appears in both Class A and Class B, and some of its more
degenerate forms, especially of the latter class, present a close conformity with the
DUACkllflAM a,
CRETAN
CRETAN
PHOENICIAN
CRETAN
CRETAN
"V
rtlUtNIUlflN %
LINEAR
HIEROGLYPHS
ETC.
L1NEAR.AB
HIEROGLYPHS
%
<
?0
\ [& semi tic
[A A]
nri
Ul
*?
if
* +
C5
1
A J?--FRACnok
For* ex its
SIGH.
<0
-I
*.
(■m,} X
1?
u
N
:z>z
j( 5 SEMITIC
zf"
\ / OOUBLt
0
I
?•?
??
A A, B.
'm\
si
I'll
©0
©0
A,B. B.
°F WHCllCtUSiW
^
/\L
him
I
3 1
m
k
Fig. 41 (Table V). Phoenician, &c, letters of
meaning compared with Minoan signs.
Phoenician teth. On the tablets of Class B, moreover, we find the pictorial figure of
a chariot-wheel in addition to purely graphic and simplified characters.
Koph is another letter-name unexplained by any Semitic language. Resh, which g*?1^
follows it, is by general consent interpreted as the human head, and if derived from , he<.ad'!,oan
a pictograph with this meaning would originally have been a head in profile, sign.
From the early Tyrian form of koph, preserved in the Greek koppa (<?), and
from the recurrence of a series of allied pairs in the Phoenician list—such as
yod = ' hand' and kaph = ' palm'; mem - ' water' and nun - ' fish'; '«>'« = ' eye' and
pi-'mouth'—it is natural to explain it as having originally represented the outline
of a facing head without features.' It is certainly, therefore, a suggestive fact that
' It was, indeed, formerly compared with an Arabian siders this comparison unwarranted (op. cit., p. 227 note),
word signifying the back of the head ; but Delitsch con- Cf., too, Peters, op. cit., p. 196.
a 'wheel' sign, but Semitic etymologies have failed to throw any light on its TM-iUla
name. No Babylonian or Egyptian hieroglyphic derivation can be claimed for it Jfinoa°
with any show of probability. It is also absent from the conventionalized picto- 'wheel'
graphy of Crete, which belongs to the period before wheel traffic was known to SIgn'
the Aegean world; though this coincidence by itself is not conclusive, since a primitive
solar sign consisting of a cross within a circle is widely diffused. But, with the first
advent of the advanced linear script, e becomes one of the commonest of the Minoan
characters. It appears in both Class A and Class B, and some of its more
degenerate forms, especially of the latter class, present a close conformity with the
DUACkllflAM a,
CRETAN
CRETAN
PHOENICIAN
CRETAN
CRETAN
"V
rtlUtNIUlflN %
LINEAR
HIEROGLYPHS
ETC.
L1NEAR.AB
HIEROGLYPHS
%
<
?0
\ [& semi tic
[A A]
nri
Ul
*?
if
* +
C5
1
A J?--FRACnok
For* ex its
SIGH.
<0
-I
*.
(■m,} X
1?
u
N
:z>z
j( 5 SEMITIC
zf"
\ / OOUBLt
0
I
?•?
??
A A, B.
'm\
si
I'll
©0
©0
A,B. B.
°F WHCllCtUSiW
^
/\L
him
I
3 1
m
k
Fig. 41 (Table V). Phoenician, &c, letters of
meaning compared with Minoan signs.
Phoenician teth. On the tablets of Class B, moreover, we find the pictorial figure of
a chariot-wheel in addition to purely graphic and simplified characters.
Koph is another letter-name unexplained by any Semitic language. Resh, which g*?1^
follows it, is by general consent interpreted as the human head, and if derived from , he<.ad'!,oan
a pictograph with this meaning would originally have been a head in profile, sign.
From the early Tyrian form of koph, preserved in the Greek koppa (<?), and
from the recurrence of a series of allied pairs in the Phoenician list—such as
yod = ' hand' and kaph = ' palm'; mem - ' water' and nun - ' fish'; '«>'« = ' eye' and
pi-'mouth'—it is natural to explain it as having originally represented the outline
of a facing head without features.' It is certainly, therefore, a suggestive fact that
' It was, indeed, formerly compared with an Arabian siders this comparison unwarranted (op. cit., p. 227 note),
word signifying the back of the head ; but Delitsch con- Cf., too, Peters, op. cit., p. 196.