Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 1.pdf/492

444 —

In the leltiT

Final

D

the

orij;iiinl Ix'iit

stem was

until it reaclieii the upper horizontal stroke, so that the liiial Vfi in today has the form D- 'llie I'alinyreiie script pos-sesses a liiial Ann with

curved upwurd

Letters.

still

more

a li'iii;theiied stem; the Nahalean contains similarly tiiial Kn/i/i, -V'/«, y^nU: and S/iiii, and further a closed linal Afiiii and final //c. In the .same manner as exhihited in final -lAw the /iir/ai; on the head of ."v/m./- developed into a straight line, and as was the ease in the Palmyreiie and Syriac script the stem was a^jain bent tipward, so as to reach the upper liori/oiital line; but it remained ojieii for a

—

other letters, and it hangs from the horizontal line; the stems of the Shin are dmwn together to a point, and often the left-hand stem pas-ses beyond this point. Compare Plate III., cols. 2, 3, and Talmud Shall.

1(14./.

The oidy inscrii)lions in S(iuai"e characters dating from the time of the destruction of Jerusalem ari': ( 1 )

the

(.see

monuments marking

"C.

I.

H."

Bouiulury InscTiptiDii uf the City of Gezer. >TJ cn,"i (Limit of Uezen.

longer period than .Vtin (compare, for the t wo letters, As a result of the effort to apalso Shab. 104«). proach the letter following it, the hook on Lumcil has been lengthened and advanced more and more

toward the front until it finally became p. So also V the right side was prolonged beyond the point of inter.section and finally produced In such letters as 1, n, and 1 the stem could y. not be bent to the left without conflicting, the first two with the letters 3, 3. and the third with J. But since the head of 1 gradually disappeared or became nothing but a short stroke, the whole letter approached verj' closely to f, which oven in the Persian But, in order times had been reduced to a mere to distinguish the one from the other, it was found necessary to add a small stroke on the left side of Vaw, thus V The treat nieut of Yvd varied it often occurs with a stroke on the left side, a remnant of the lower horizontal line; but this line was very insignificant and often was not written at all. The stem, as a rule, was made very small (JIatt. v. 18, iCira Iv though, in order to make its form fiia Kepaia) harmonize more nearlj' with that of the other letters, it was occasionally lengthened and then reseinl)lcd in the ca.se of



.





the V In the earliest editions of the Seiiluagint. it is said that the Tetragram was written in Hebrew characters which looked like the Greek nilll (Jerome, ed. Migne, i. 429; see also Gesenius, "Gescli. d. HebriliOf the upper sclien Sprache und Sehrift," p. 176). transverse line in Aleph only the left side remains, und in order to reach the base-line, it Changes in was gradually lengthened. The same is llu^ case with J, though there as well Letters. as in A!i'ji/i. the whole left m<inbcr of In the letter Jfe the letter is pushed to the bottom. the former lower horizontal line is gradually made parallel to the vertical stem and fastened to the upper cross line, from winch, by a process of shortening, it has been separated oidy since the Middle Age.s. Some of the older forms of this letter show an extension of the right-hand stenv above the cross-bar. In the ease of JIci H := n, a system of curtailment affected the upper horns of this letter, gradually reducing it to its present form. An extension of the upper part of Tav is also noticeable in the older forms of this letter, which causes the Tur to approach in ajipearance the corresponding Syrian sign. As early as the middle-Aramaic period the letters Q. p. appear in forms almost identical with those now in use, though in the older Koph the stem is not longer than in the

C

ii.

compare



the boundaries of Gezer also IJdzbarski. "

Hand-

l)nch," p. 484. and " Ephemcris." i. oti), and (2) the bilingual legends u])on the sjireophagus of Queen Zadda (see illustration Inscripbelow), tions I'll to now (lildl), five of in Square these boun(lary -stones have been disCharacters. covered, thanks to Clermont-Ganneau they served to indieatethe town limits of Gezer. beyond which it was forbidden to pass on The sjircophagus bears the short legthe Sabbath",

mV. which is repeated in Syriac. The here referred to has bci'ii idi'n(jUeen or ]uincess tilied as the princess llelenaof Ailiabene, who is said to have settled in Jerusidem about the year 40of the common era. From the fact that it preserves the oldest Syriac inscription known this bilingual stone possesses additional value. .Several fragmentary inscriptions found in Jerusalem and vicinity may be assigned to the first centuries of the common eratC'hwols<m, Plate I,, Nos, 3, 4, 7, 9), To the third and fourth centuries belong the inscriptions found in the synagogues of Kefr-Bir'im in Galilee, northwest of Safed; see illustration on following page. Older even than these are theinscrijitionsover the Synagogue in Palmyra, which contain the Shcma'. end nnj^D

!/

444

THE JEWISH EN'CYLLUPEDIA

Alphabet

letters.



(See Plate

mV

II,, col. 7;

compare

S.

Eandauer

in " Sit-

zungsberiehte dcr Berliner Academic." 1884, ]). 933, and Ph. Berger, "Ilistoire de I'ficriture." 2d ed., p. 2.')9. ) The elianicters on the walls of the catacombs of Venosa are also very old, and belong jirobably to the period between the second and the fifth centuries; most of them are painted in red Icail. Till now the oldest gravestones have been found in Italy (compare Aseoli, " Iscrizioni Inedite o Mai Note Grecche, Latine, Ilebraiche di Aniichi Sepolcri Giudaici," in the "Transactions" of the fourth Oriental Congress in Florence, published atTuiin and Home, 1880, and See Plate III., cols. 7 also "C. I. H." No. 2iet seq.).

and

8.

The nundier of

inscriptions relating to this petheir contentsare of little imOwing to the many upheavals which portance. took iilace, notably in Palestine, during this interval, much epigraphic material was imdoubtedly destroyed, though it is certain that if very many monuments had been produced the existing remains riod is very small,

and

woidd

have

been

much greater. From the mode of execution that

Inscriplion on Qiu'en Zadda's SarFrom "C. I. S." ii. 156.)

cophajfiis.

(

it

would appear there was

then

not much activity in epigraphic work, for the script seems to come from inexperi-

Compared with it, the deenced, chnnsy hands. degree of perfection to which the Palmyrene script had arrived is striking, though this in essence is the same as the Hebrew square script (compare Plate 1 1., col. 7l. The Nabatean alphabet also in a comparatively short period developed into a smooth and pleasing cursive, due entirely to the repeated effort to connect the letters with each other. The connection of single characters in words occurred even in the inscriptions of the Bene Hezir, but the general acceptance of ligature was systematically opposed. Such