Byblos Syllabary - Relation To Other Scripts

Relation To Other Scripts

Some signs, for example, look like modified common Egyptian hieroglyphs, but there are many others which do not. Hoch (1990) points out that many of the signs seem to derive from Old Kingdom hieratic, rather than directly from hieroglyphic. It is known that from as early as 2600 BC Egyptian influence in Byblos was strong: Byblos was the main export harbor for "cedar" wood to Egypt, and consequently there was a considerable Egyptian merchant community in Byblos. Thus it is probable that the syllabary was devised by someone in Byblos who had seen Egyptian hieroglyphs and used them freely as an example to compose a new syllabary that was better adapted to the native language of Byblos—just as in neighbouring Ugarit a few centuries later a cuneiform alphabet was devised that was easier to use than the complicated Akkadian cuneiform.

Quite many signs resemble letters of the later Phoenician alphabet: . This suggests that the latter was derived in some way from the syllabary. Thus the inscriptions are potentially an important link between the Egyptian hieroglyphic script and the later Semitic abjads derived from Proto-Sinaitic.