[Illustration: CRETAN WRITING
A large tablet with linear script found in the palace at Gnossus, Crete
There are eight lines of writing, with a total of about twenty words
Notice the upright lines, which appear to mark the termination of each
group of signs.]
EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS
The Egyptians early developed such an alphabet. Unfortunately they never gave up their older methods of writing and learned to rely upon alphabetic signs alone. Egyptian hieroglyphics [11] are a curious jumble of object- pictures, symbols of ideas, and signs for entire words, separate syllables, and letters. The writing is a museum of all the steps in the development from the picture to the letter.
PHOENICIAN ALPHABET
As early, apparently, as the tenth century B.C. we find the Phoenicians of western Asia in possession of an alphabet. It consisted of twenty-two letters, each representing a consonant. The Phoenicians do not seem to have invented their alphabetic signs. It is generally believed that they borrowed them from the Egyptians, but recent discoveries in Crete perhaps point to that island as the source of the Phoenician alphabet.
[Illustration: EGYPTIAN AND BABYLONIAN WRITING Below the pictured hieroglyphics in the first line is the same text in a simpler writing known as hieratic. The two systems, however, were not distinct; they were as identical as our own printed and written characters. The third line illustrates old Babylonian cuneiform, in which the characters, like the hieroglyphics, are rude and broken-down pictures of objects. Derived from them is the later cuneiform shown in lines four and five.]
DIFFUSION OF THE PHOENICIAN ALPHABET
If they did not originate the alphabet now in use, the Phoenicians did most to spread a knowledge of it in other lands. They were bold sailors and traders who bought and sold throughout the Mediterranean. Wherever they went, they took their alphabet. From the Phoenicians the Greeks learned their letters. Then the Greeks taught them to the Romans, from whom other European peoples borrowed them. [12]
[Illustration: THE MOABITE STONE, (Louvre, Paris) Found in 1868 A.D. at Diban east of the Dead Sea. The monument records the victory of Mesha king of Moab, over the united armies of Israel and Judah about 850 B.C. The inscription, consisting of 34 lines is one of the most ancient examples of Phoenician writing.]