The inscriptions of Sinai, where the Bible says Moses received the tablets of the Ten Commandments, have been deciphered by Professor Martin Sprengling of the University of Chicago, who has traced the alphabet to its source and declared that it is of Semitic origin, and not Phoenician, as scholars have thought.
The results of Dr. Sprengling’s research, which solve a riddle which has puzzled modern archaeologists, is regarded as a notable addition to the story of the world’s culture. Dr. Sprengling tells of his achievement in a monograph of the Oriental institute published through the University of Chicago Press.
Some unsung Bedouin mine foreman, working for the Egyptians, masters of the then civilised world, invented the rudimentary alphabet in the half century between 1850 – 1800 B.C., according to Professor Sprengling. In order to keep records of operations, the Bedouin took the complex hieroglyphic inscriptions of the Egyptians and devised a simple system of twenty-one symbols, discarding entirely the picture element of the Egyptian.
The inscriptions which Professor Sprengling has succeeded in translating were found in 1904 by Sir Flinders Petrie in Sinai. There it was, presumable, that Moses received the law from God.
In the mountainous region to the south the Egyptians at the time of Amen-hotep III, conducted mining operations for copper, turquoise and other minerals, and semi-precious stones. Their empire was flourishing then, and the industrial boom which they created at Sinal attracted as labourers numberous Bedouins, who multiplied and waxed fat on the flesh-pots set out by the Egyptians.
There are fourteen known examples of the inscriptions and scholars have disagreed violently on their reading. Some have attempted to read into the inscriptions references to Moses and his hostility to Egypt.
Professor Sprengling’s translations are much simpler than any hither to made, and check with known historical facts. He has shown that most of them are dedicatory inscriptions to Baalat, the feminine form of the god Baal, against whom Moses and the Jews warred and a priest of whose cult Elijah killed.
Most of the inscriptions express thanks for favours rendered by Baalat or are petitions for favours from the goddess.
In the inscriptions also are references to Seir, the land just to the east of Sinai, and show that the people who made the inscriptions and who were working the mines under Egyptian direction were from that land. It is the word form translated by Professor Sprengling as meaning Seir that has been read as the name of Moses by some scholars.
The Egyptians had the principle of the alphabet, but their system was much more complicated. They indicated a house by the letters “h” and “s”, but they placed between the two symbols a complete picture of a house. The simple Bedouin, unable to master the intricacies of the picture language, took a bold step and produced one of the great inventions of the world by representing actual, single sounds with a single symbol which might be combined with others.
When the pressure on the Egyptian Empire forced abandonment of the Sinai workings an industrial depression hit that region. The desert people, used to prosperity, had no industry to sustain them and they migrated in various directions, taking their alphabet with them.
One group went to Palestine and Syria, becoming the Canaanites and the Phoenicians, whom the Jews encountered 350 years later. Others went into Southern Arabia, becoming the Hinaeans.
The Phoenician-Canaanite form of the alphabet flourished most vigorously. The Greeks refined it so much that their form has been restricted to a limited territory, but the Romans, simplifying the Greek alphabet, sent it out on a world conquest.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
