by Eleanor H. Reich
This undated picture launched by the Israel Antiquities Authority on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022, exhibits an ivory comb with a whole sentence within the Canaanite language, a 3,700-year-old inscription encouraging individuals to rid themselves of lice believed to be dated again so far as 1700 BC that was found in Tel Lachish, Israel. Israeli researchers say the invention shines new gentle on a few of humanity’s earliest use of an alphabet and its means to write down. Credit: Dafna Gazit, Israel Antiquities Authority through AP
Israeli archaeologists have discovered an historical comb courting again some 3,700 years in the past and bearing what is probably going the oldest recognized full sentence in Canaanite alphabetical script, in keeping with an article printed Wednesday.
The inscription encourages individuals to comb their hair and beards to rid themselves of lice. The sentence accommodates 17 letters that learn: “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.”
Experts say the invention shines new gentle on a few of humanity’s earliest use of the Canaanite alphabet, invented round 1800 B.C. and the muse of the all successive alphabetic methods, resembling Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Latin and Cyrillic.
The mundane matter signifies that individuals had hassle with lice in on a regular basis life in the course of the time—and archaeologists say they’ve even discovered microscopic proof of head lice on the comb.
The comb was first excavated in 2016 at Tel Lachish, an archaeological website in southern Israel, but it surely was solely late final yr when a professor at Israel’s Hebrew University seen the tiny phrases inscribed on it. Details of the discover had been printed Wednesday in an article within the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology.
The lead researcher, Hebrew University archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel, informed The Associated Press that whereas many artefacts bearing the Canaanite script have been discovered over time, that is the primary full sentence to be found.
Garfinkel mentioned earlier findings of just some letters, possibly a phrase right here and there, didn’t go away a lot room for additional analysis on the lives on the Canaanites. “We did not have sufficient materials,” he mentioned.
The discover additionally opens up room for debate concerning the historical period, Garfinkel added. The proven fact that the sentence was discovered on an ivory comb within the historical metropolis’s palace and temple district, coupled with the mentioning of the beard, may point out that solely rich males had been capable of learn and write.
“It is a really human textual content,” Garfinkel mentioned. “It exhibits us that individuals did not actually change, and lice did not actually change.”
Canaanites spoke an historical Semitic language—associated to trendy Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic—and resided within the lands abutting the japanese Mediterranean. They are believed to have developed the primary recognized alphabetic system of writing.
Finding a whole sentence would additional point out that Canaanites stood out amongst early civilizations of their use of the written phrase. “It exhibits that even in probably the most historical part there have been full sentences” Garfinkel added.
He mentioned specialists dated the script to 1700 B.C. by evaluating it to the archaic Canaanite alphabet beforehand present in Egypt’s Sinai desert, courting again to between 1900 B.C. and 1700 B.C.
But the Tel Lachish comb was present in a a lot later archaeological context, and carbon courting failed to find out its precise age, the article notes.
Austrian archaeologist Felix Höflmayer, an professional on the interval who was not a part of the publication, mentioned this technique of courting was not definitive.
“There are simply not sufficient securely dated early alphabetic inscriptions presently recognized,” he mentioned. Nonetheless, he added the invention was extremely vital, and can assist solidify Tel Lachish as a middle of the early alphabet improvement.
“Seventeen letters preserved on a single object is certainly exceptional,” Höflmayer mentioned.
More data:
Daniel Vainstub et al, A Canaanite’s Wish to Eradicate Lice on an Inscribed Ivory Comb from Lachish, Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology (2022). DOI: 10.52486/01.00002.4
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Israel archaeologists discover historical comb with ‘full sentence’ (2022, November 12)
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