Engraved into the aspect of a virtually 4,000-year-old ivory comb is an easy want: Get these lice out of my hair.
This faint inscription, written within the early language of the traditional Canaanites, represents the earliest recognized occasion of an entire sentence written utilizing a phonetic alphabet, says archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The writing system of the Canaanites, who lived in a area within the japanese Mediterranean referred to as the Levant till round 2,000 years in the past, later served as a significant foundation for a lot of fashionable alphabets (SN: 7/27/17). That makes the comb “the most important object I’ve ever found during an excavation,” says Garfinkel. The analysis was revealed November 9 within the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology.
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The Canaanites had been a cultural group that traded extensively throughout the Mediterranean. Few of their written information have survived, so most of what researchers learn about them come from different paperwork, such because the Old Testament.
The comb was the unearthed in 2016 among the many ruins of the traditional metropolis of Lachish in present-day Israel. Years later, when the comb was despatched to a lab to seek for traces of lice, somebody seen faint symbols etched on the aspect. A better look revealed that the symbols spelled out the sentence, “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard,” Garfinkel and colleagues report November 9 within the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology.
The discovery might provide a glimpse into the lifetime of considered one of Lachish’s rich denizens. The proven fact that the sentence refers to a beard suggests it belonged to an elite man, Garfinkel says, since elephant ivory was an costly good that needed to be imported from Egypt.
The plea towards lice is “so human,” says Garfinkel, who notes that different writings from the time are likely to focus on royal accomplishments or faith. It additionally seems that the comb was capable of fulfill its objective, a minimum of considerably. Between the enamel, the researchers discovered the traditional stays of a louse.