The Proto-Sinaitic script was not an invention. In Fig. 1, I compare the corpus of Proto-Sinaitic glyphs from the 2nd millennium BC, as this has been proposed for encoding in Unicode (Pandey 2019), to coexisting or
pre-existing similar graphemes from the other Mediterranean and Pontic regions. Among them, Petroglyphs found in Armenia from the 7th millennium BC (Vahanyan and Vahanyan 2009), Vinča signs
from the Balkans of the 6th millennium BC (Winn 1981), and various Minoan scripts
of the 2nd millennium BC (Godart and Olivier 1996; Decorte 2018a; 2018b; Salgarella and Castellan 2021). Petrie’s disposition to accept the
Proto-Sinaitic script he found as one of the many Mediterranean scripts
existing since 7000-6000 BC (Flinders-Petrie and Currelly 1906) is, therefore, better
justified than a merely circular association with Biblical myths.
Figure 1. The Proto-Sinaitic script (1900 – 1300 BC) in Unicode. For comparison, Egyptian hieroglyphic relatives are framed in red, Cretan hieroglyphs (1900 – 1600 BC) in light blue, Linear A (1800 – 1450 BC) in dark blue, Linear B (1450-1200 BC) in grey, Cypro-Minoan (Linear C; 1550 – 1050 BC) in green, Vinča symbols (6000 – 5000 BC) in yellow and Armenian petroglyphs (7000-6000) in orange.
Grigori and Vahan Vahanyan observed remarkable similarities between Old Armenian rock glyphs (archetypes of signs; 7000-6000 BC) and symbols found in the Balkans. They split the latter into three groups: 27 symbols used in the earliest times (6000-5000 BC), 38 used throughout the Vinča period, and 142 miscellaneous signs. They claim complete identity between Armenian and Vinča forms for the 28 earliest signs, 90% for the 37 diachronic symbols, and 80% for the other 142. For some of the pairs, the degree of similarity is debatable. Some signs, e.g., a series of 1 to 7 straight scores, crosses, or circles, are too simple to matter. Many signs, however, are complex enough to suggest that the similarity between the Armenian and Balkan versions is not haphazard.
Figure 2. A: Carved signs on wood from Dispilio, Greece, radiocarbon dated to about 5200 BC. B: Similar Helladic signs found in Attica (1), in Cretan Linear A (2) or hieroglyphic scripts (3), or in Laconia, Peloponnese (4). C: Signs from other Paleo-European sites. Artwork by Yorgos Facorellis, modified from Hourmouziadis (1996). Creative Commons license.
Simple linear signs have been found
isolated or in small clusters in many sites around the Mediterranean and
elsewhere. A wooden tablet from a Neolithic site at Dispilio, near Kastoria in North-Western Greece,
features 10 lines of signs (Fig. 2). The inscription was dated radiocarbon to 5202 ± 123 BC (Facorellis, et al. 2014). Its published symbols are virtually identical to early Aegean and Helladic
glyphs and resemble many Neolithic finds from the Balkans (Winn 1981; Lazarovici and Merlini 2005), but the inscription is not yet recognized as a linguistic
record. The debate as to how we recognize a linguistic record is ongoing (Decorte 2018a; 2018b). It all depends
on defining a linguistic record and the term language itself. How long
should a string of characters be to convey a message? Are logos, trademarks, or
stamps linguistic records? Do linguistic records need to record ethnic
phonetics? Can we communicate without speaking? We may affirm, anyway, that
some Europeans were already familiar with linear symbolic drawing from the
Neolithic times.
Recognized linear writing systems began to
appear during the 2nd millennium BC. Short scripts found in Serabit
el-Khadim, in the Sinai Peninsula, and in Wadi el-Hol, South Nile, dating from
the 19th-15th century BC, are considered an
evolutionary Proto-Semitic link between Egyptian hieroglyphs and later Semitic
abjads (Gardiner 1916; Colless 2010; 2014; Goldwasser 2010). But Hamlet Martirosyan found astonishing similarities of many Egyptian hieroglyphics with much older Armenian signs (Martirosyan n.d.). Flinders-Petrie, William Matthew, and Charles Trick Currelly. 1906.
“The Lesser and Foreign Monuments.” In Researches in Sinai, 122–41. New
York, NY: E.P. Dutton and Company.
Gardiner, Alan Henderson. 1916. “The Egyptian Origin of the Semitic Alphabet.” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 3 (1): 1-16 (23 pages).
Godart, Louis, and Jean-Pierre Olivier.
1996. Corpus Hieroglyphicarum Inscriptionum Cretae. Études Crétoises.
Vol. 31. École française d’Athènes.
Goldwasser, Orly. 2010. “How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs.” Biblical Archaeology Review 36: 36–51.
Hourmouziadis, George H. 1996. Dispilio, Kastoria a Prehistoric
Lakeside Settlement. Thessaloniki: Codex.
Pandey, Anshuman. 2019. “Revisiting the Encoding of ProtoSinaitic in Unicode.” Proposal L2/19299. Unicode.org. July 2019.
Salgarella, Ester, and Simon Castellan. 2021. “SigLA: The Signs of
Linear~A. A~Palæographical Database.” In Grapholinguistics in the 21st
Century, Part II, 5:945–62. Fluxus Editions.
Vahanyan, Grigori, and Vahan Vahanyan. 2009. “The Intercultural
Relations between Old Europe and Old Armenia.” In Papers, XXIII Valcamonica
Symposium, Prehistoric and Tribal Art: Making History of Prehistory, the Role
of Rock Art, 357–62. Valcamonica.
Winn, Shan M M. 1981. Pre-Writing In Southeastern Europe: The
Sign System Of The Vinča Culture Ca. 4000 BC. Western Publishers.
