Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Inscriptions" to "Ireland, William Henry" / Volume 14, Slice 6

Articles in This Slice

I. Semitic Inscriptions
Excluding cuneiform ( q.v. ), the inscriptions known as Semitic are usually classed under two main heads as North and South Semitic. The former class includes Hebrew (with Moabite), Phoenician (with Punic and neo-Punic), and Aramaic (with Nabataean and Palmyrene). The South Semitic class includes the Minaean and Sabaean inscriptions of South Arabia. In most of these departments there has been a very large increase of material during recent years, some of which is of the highest historical and palaeographical importance. The North Semitic monuments have received the greater share of attention because of their more general interest in connexion with the history of surrounding countries.
Early Hebrew inscriptions are at present few and meagre, although it cannot be doubted that others would be found by excavating suitable sites. The most important is that discovered in 1880 in the tunnel of the pool of Siloam, commemorating the piercing of the rock. It is generally believed to refer to Hezekiah’s scheme for supplying Jerusalem with water (2 Kings xx. 20), and therefore to date from about 700 B.C. It consists of six lines in good Hebrew, and is the only early Hebrew inscription of any length. The character does not differ from that of the Moabite Stone, except in the slightly cursive tendency of its curved strokes, due no doubt to their having been traced for the stone-cutter by a scribe who was used to writing on parchment. There are also a few inscribed seals dating from before the Exile, some factory marks and an engraved capital at al-Amwās, which last may, however, be Samaritan. Otherwise this character is only found (as the result of an archaizing tendency) on coins of the Hasmoneans, and, still later, on those of the first and second (Bar Kokhba’s) revolts.
The new Hebrew character, which developed into the modern square character, is first found in a name of five letters at ‘Arāq-al-amīr, of the 2nd century B.C. Somewhat later, but probably of the 1st century B.C., is the tombstone of the B’nē Ḥeẓīr (“Tomb of St James”) at Jerusalem. An inscription on a ruined synagogue at Kafr Bir’im, near Ṣafed, perhaps of about A.D. 300, or earlier, shows the fully developed square character.