Sinaitic Inscriptions

Sinaitic inscriptions, also called proto-Sinaitic inscriptions, archaeological remains that are among the earliest examples of alphabetic writing; they were inscribed on stones in the Sinai Peninsula, where they were first discovered in 1904–05 by the British archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie. Apparently influenced both by Egyptian hieroglyphic writing and by the Canaanitic writing system (1900–1800 bce; probably ancestral to the North Semitic alphabet), the Sinaitic inscriptions date from approximately the beginning of the 16th century bce. Although not fully deciphered, the writing system appears to be alphabetic rather than ideographic. The first significant discovery toward this end was from British Egyptologist Sir Alan Gardiner, who in 1916 deciphered one group of symbols as the name of a Semitic female deity, Baʿalat; this conclusion was based on similarities in letter form between the Sinaitic symbols and Semitic counterparts. Gardiner’s research also indicated a relationship between the Sinaitic writing system and the North Semitic alphabet; the South Semitic alphabets of the Arabian Peninsula also appear to be related.