Читать книгу Memory of the World: The treasures that record our history from 1700 BC to the present day - UNESCO - Страница 13
ОглавлениеInscribed 2005
What is it
The Phoenician alphabet, developed in 13th-century BC Phoenicia, is a non-pictographic, consonantal alphabet.
Why was it inscribed
The Phoenician alphabet is the writing system that is regarded as the prototype for all alphabets of the world today.
Where is it
Stele no. I is in cadastral lot n.35 that falls within the municipality of Zouk Mosbeh. Stelae nos. II–XXII are located in plot n.98 that belongs to the Order of Antonine (Wakf St Joseph – City of Dbayeh)
The Phoenician alphabet was developed in the 13th century BC in Phoenicia, an area that spanned much of the eastern shore of the Mediterranean in the region of Canaan, the zone of the Middle East known as the Fertile Crescent. Phoenicia was a seafaring nation with trading links mostly along the southern shores of the Mediterranean, and by the 13th century BC it was the foremost maritime power in the region.
Trading and cultural links brought the Phoenicians into contact with the writing systems used in Egypt and Mesopotamia, the two major powers of the time. The Phoenicians used both these alphabets – hieroglyphics and cuneiforms – but in the 13th century they devised their own system.
What made the new alphabet so innovative was that it used the sounds of the contemporary Phoenician dialect and represented them in letter form. Unlike pictograph-based writing systems, a phonetic alphabet cut down on the number of characters needed for expression, thus simplifying the language and making it easier to use. Their writing system spread into the western and eastern worlds.
There were twenty-two letterforms in the Phoenician alphabet, which was an abjad – that is, all of its letters were consonants. It is widely seen as the precursor to most of the major alphabets in use today. As Greece became the economic and cultural powerhouse, so the Phoenicians’ alphabet gradually gave way to the Greek; furthermore, some letters were modified to function as vowels. However, traces of the Phoenician alphabet can still be found in the Roman era in the 1st century AD.
The sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos bears the oldest example still extant of the full Phoenician alphabet, from around 1200 BC.
Monument to the Phoenician alphabet at the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Byblos, Lebanon.
The oldest example still extant of the full alphabet dates from around 1200 BC and is engraved on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos, a Phoenician city.
