Ancient Hebrew Language and Alphabet

Ancient Hebrew Language and Alphabet
Figure 14 Greek inscription found on bowl c. 800 BCE
Figure 15 Greek writing on New Testament papyrus c. 200 CE
To the south of the Shemitic peoples, the Egyptians were
writing with an alphabet almost identical to the Ancient
Hebrew script. In addition to the alphabet, the Egyptians
used a complex system of pictographs called hieroglyphs
(fig. 16) where each pictograph represented one, two or
three syllables.
Figure 16 Egyptian Hieroglyphs from the Book of the Dead c.
1350 BCE
To the east of the Shemites were the Sumerians whose
system of writing was very similar to the Egyptian with
several hundred pictographs (fig. 17). Over time, these
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