ORIENTALIA LOVANIENSIA

ANALECTA
159

MOVING ACROSS BORDERS

Foreign Relations, Religion and Cultural
Interactions in the Ancient Mediterranean

edited by

P. KOUSOULIS and K. MAGLIVERAS

UITGEVERIJ PEETERS en DEPARTEMENT OOSTERSE STUDIES

LEUVEN - PARIS - DUDLEY, MA
2007

THE ALPHABET(S) AT A TURNING POINT:

A VIEW FROM EGYPT
ALESSANDRO ROCCATI
University of Turin

Introduction
In the history of the alphabet, Egypt undoubtedly plays an important
role. Scholars have been divided in quite opposite views: there are those
who believe that the alphabets were developed from an Egyptian prototype and those who deny that the "alphabetic" writings observed in
Egyptian inscriptions of the first millennium BC had anything to do with
contemporary alphabet(s)1. In the present paper I am not going to
resume either the thorny question of the birth of the alphabet or the different opinions expressed on this topic. I will rather draw the attention
on some structural points that have never been raised and seem to me to
be relevant to the question.
The outlook is set in the landscape of the Ramesside "empire". During the fifteenth-twelfth centuries BC, with a peak in the thirteenth century, dominated by the long-lived figure of Ramses II. the power of the
Pharaohs reached its maximum. This was also the case in Egypt's relations with other advanced kingdoms. Such a hitherto unknown wealth
resulted naturally in a number of unforeseen transformations, which conveyed a yet incomplete but progressing idea of "empire". The Amarna
reform pushed such widening of horizons under an ideological insight.
The adoption of cuneifom Babylonian in the international communication witnessed by the Amarna archives was thereafter replaced by the
promotion of Late Egyptian, at least within the borders of Egyptian
influence2. For the first time, even in Egypt this constituted the linking
medium of a multifarious society, in which different languages and customs merged. This multicultural feature of society in the Ramesside
period can be tested by a variety of eccentric inputs through the Egypt-

' K. JANSEN-WINKELN, 'Drei Denkmler mit archasierender Orthographie', Orientalia

67 (1998) 171-2.
- A. ROCCATI, 'La lingua diffusa. Politica e lingua nell'Egitto ramesside". La Parola
del Passato 268 (1993). 26-37.

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THE ALPHABET(S) AT A TURNING POINT

ian means of expression: language and literature3, art, religion, involving large scale contacts with foreign peoples as well. Naturally, all these
factors revealed a certain degree of radical change in society, where the
high culture inherited since old times was now paralleled by a "low"
culture, eventually reinterpreted or mixed with unusual elements.
A similar sample of this picture, albeit under different circumstances,
could be traced in the contemporaneously findings at Ugarit. There the
town's own language and writing (a cuneiform alphabet) came into close
contact with the use of cuneiform Babylonian and eventually of other
practices from neighbouring countries, such as Hittite, Khurrian or
Cypro-Minoan. That means that the linguistic typologies were still joint
to the textual typologies. Moreover, these manifestations were overshadowed in Egypt by the weight of the ancient internal tradition, which
overspread even the emergence of Late Egyptian4. In this environment
the present paper examines some peculiar innovations which could have
a bearing on the way the alphabets were developed in the Phoenician
and Greek regions.

place when one unique writing had to record a second, different tongue,
i.e. Late Egyptian. This occurred from the Second Intermediate Period
through the Amarna age (sixteenth-fourteenth centuries BC). Then it
became all too evident at the outset that language was a different function from that of writing, even not yet to a point that one language could
be written with several scripts (what is somehow available in the king's
letters found at Boghaz Ki in the reign of Ramses II) and that one script
could write different languages (what was already implicit in the layout
of Late Egyptian and became a rale in the first millennium BC). Therefore we notice in the development of Egyptian writing around the middle of the second millennium BC the prise de conscience of a feature
that is basic for the alphabets: the separation between language and writing.

328

Some observations about writing

The early invention of writing and its long use does not involve automatically the intellectual qualities that we attach to that technique. But
there is a basic difference between the first writing systems and the subsequently developing scripts. The earliest systems were "logographic",
i.e. they did not endeavour to render sounds, but rather words, comprehensive of sound and meaning. A reason for that was that originally language was not felt as something separated from the script, but rather the
script was a means to make it visible and everlasting, to the point that
the script could not only be seen but also heard. It sounded inasmuch the
words contained sounds and any reading should have been done aloud.
In other words a script like Egyptian hieroglyphs was first of all "visible
language" in its entirety.
As I have argued elsewhere5, following a number of changes this
archaic conception was developed. However, its final resetting took
3
A. ROCCATI, 'Sistemi cultural] significativi nel mondo faraonico', in: Literatur und
Politik im Pharaonischen und Ptolemischen gypten. Bibliothque d'tude de 1'IFAO
27 (Cairo, 1999), 53-60.
4
A. ROCCATI, Lingue e cultura dell'antico Egitto: Babele. Babil (Padova, 2002), 3-10.
5
A. ROCCATI. Dalla scrittura al testo: Philosophers and Hieroglyphs (Torino, 2003),
181-95.

Such a result could hardly have been reached without the experience
of a long practised form of writing. Hence we may assume that the rise
of the concept of separation between language and writing was inherited
by the alphabet-makers from another, older tradition. In conclusion,
even though not uniformly, the manner Egyptian and the cuneiform
writings developed probably yielded many reciprocal and complementary inputs, due to their tremendous expansion during the second millennium BC.
What is "tongue"
Beyond being identical with the Hieroglyphs, as a visible language,
the tongue was thoroughly felt as a whole with the physical organ. A.
development similar to that of writing entailed the idea of "tongue" as
well. Until the emergence of the New Kingdom, the "tongue" as an
organ was felt identical with the "tongue" as a language'1. Thereafter,
the experience of an old language opposed to the present one inside one
country, and again the official use within Egypt of a different language
and script (as cuneiform Babylonian but also others) probably led to the
separation of the concepts of tongue and language, even inside the same
word. The acknowledgement that the human languages were many and
could be written was probably the forerunner of the search for a script fit
to record all of them. The fact that such a tool was easier to handle
inside a rather phonetic scheme (as the alphabet is) compared to a Iogo6
S. SAUNERON, 'La differentiation des langages d'aprs la tradition gyptienne'. Bulletin de I'lnstitut Franais d'archologie Orientale 60 (1960) 31-41.

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THE ALPHABET(S) AT A TURNING POINT

graphic scheme was probably the mainspring for the success of the phonetic choice. However, before it could happen it required that the need
to register any language had to mature.
Moreover the difficulty in taking over an already available logographic script was increased by the above observation, namely that especially the logographic typologies were still united to the textual typologies, and these would have been a useless burden for the need of new
peoples. On the other hand, the textual typologies were so strongly
related to the logographic systems, for they were those that had generated the very concept of "text".

Moreover the direction of writing involved an inner meaning: the horizontal lines, organised in pages, were the proper form in which texts
were laid out, while vertical columns of writing were now restricted to
performative spells of religious books, as the Book of the Dead. This
way a clear separation was established between some early literature and
the common usage of contemporary society.
The practice of translation, which was again contemporary with the
flowering of alphabets in the first millennium BC, marked a step further:
text was no longer bound to a language, but it could he transferred
through several languages as such (not simply as an oral way of communicating), thus stressing its metaphysical substance. Such a feature
was not only shared by the alphabetic scripts as Aramaic and Greek, but
it distinguished in Egypt demotic and, of course, Coptic.

330

The concept of "text"

We are accustomed to state that literatures in the alphabetic script,
mainly the Greek one, developed a range of genres, from historiography
to philosophy, that cannot be traced back to the Oriental cultures.
Nobody has questioned whether the idea of "text", which is at the foundation of such written works, existed or could have existed inside the
more ancient world. From what has already been argued in relation to
the nature of earlier scripts it follows that an abstract unit as that of
"text", separated from writing and "schrift-trger", could hardly be
born in mind. On the contrary, it was fully developed at the stage of the
alphabets and it could already be detected in Late Egyptian literature. In
the Ramesside period, the two different patterns of writing peculiar to
the Egyptian script, i.e. hieroglyphs and hieratic, were no longer tied to
the nature of texts but rather to the materials used (hieroglyphs = stone,
while hieratic = papyrus). It followed that a text could normally be laid
out in either script, depending on the required "trger" (stone or
papyrus), thus showing its independent nature, bound uniquely to language.
It must be stressed that the textual typologies are connected to written
sources. Thereafter, they may enter into the oral domain. The contrary
does not appear to be true: what pertains originally to the oral domain
(e.g. the "discourse") does not constitute by itself ("ontologically") a
"textual typology", but it can eventually become such once it has been
recorded in a written form. In Egypt such a recording probably did not
begin to take place before the end of the third millennium BC; it became
effective only during the second millennium BC.
Anyhow it was hieratic that during the second millennium BC was
mainly attached to the rising typology of texts and actually Late Egyptian was written in hieratic on papyri at large.

The alleged conservatism of Egyptian culture

Those supporting the superiority of the alphabetic system cannot
accept that the maintenance of the old writing system in Egypt was a
positive fact. The loyalty to tradition will result in Egypt in separation
and, finally, in the loss of its national heritage. To this argumentation
one could object by suggesting that in reality the Egyptian civilisation is
almost unique (together with the Mesopotamian civilisation) in having
preserved a knowledge of its past burden through the Hellenistic-Roman
world7. On the contrary, the alphabetised world, which could now
expand over wide areas, was unable to keep memory of past ages, especially in the Aegean-Anatolian regions.
Furthermore, we cannot subscribe to the argument that Egypt was
indifferent to the phonetic writing, which is one of the basic features of
alphabets. In the so called "syllabic" writing, which used to record
words coming from outside the old internal tradition, there are quite a
few combinations of purely alphabetic writings, concerning not only
consonants but even consonants and vowels8. However, the logographic
script of Egyptian must have also developed some sort of syllabic
analysis of the logograms. What distinguished Egyptian "syllabic" and
"alphabetic" writings from the (later) "syllabic" and "alphabetic"
scripts is the lack of systematism, or, to put it otherwise, the lack of a
system that is built in order to render entirely and uniquely the phonetic
structure of a language.
7
s

J. OSING and G. ROSATI, Papiri geroglifici e ieratici da Tebtynis (Florence. I998).

E. EDEL, 'Zur Vokalisation des Neugyptischen'. Mitteilungen des Instituts fr Orientforschung

II. 1 (1954), 30-43.

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A. ROCCATI

Defining words
The shift from a logographic writing system into an alphabetic (i.e.
purely phonetic) one engenders the need for isolating words, because the
phonetic chain does not mark by itself the limit of a sense unit in the
way it is done in a logographic script. It is for this reason that special
indicators are added which scan the components of a text. These indicators could be noticed in the Aegean area for the Linear B script and in
the Ugaritic alphabetic clay tablets already in the thirteenth century BC.
It is interesting to observe that there is a copy of an Egyptian wisdom
text (The Teaching of Ani) used as a school book at the beginning of the
first millennium BC (P. Boulac 4), where strokes are regularly written at
the end of words, even if the text is still formulated by means of
logograms9. One should recognise therein the influence of the alphabet
practice but the graphical redundancies found in Late Egyptian texts at
the end of words could also be assessed in the same line. At any rate,
even the Egyptian logographic script had been practicing for about one
thousand years on the phonetic principle. As evidence for this submission one could refer to the graphic variants for magical reasons, to the
enigmatic writing, to the so-called group writing, which was used especially in foreign locutions and, finally, to the exchange of homophones
in Late Egyptian.
It seems appropriate to combine the rise of the alphabets with a series
of paramount acquisitions that concerned the ideas of text, language and
word and which were available in Egypt at the turn of the millennium,
as the result of a long and rich experience. One should test probable
interferences in these topics; for example the Ugaritic alphabet was used
also in order to write Khurrian and even Akkadian, which were still normally written, and in Ugarit itself, with the cuneiform system (syllabograms mixed with ideograms) and also (early) Phoenician. We must
stress the contemporary nature of the Ugaritic evidence with the events
in Egypt that have been described above, because it shows that Egypt
was not isolated at that time and was certainly not a delayed civilisation.
It would appear that the Ugaritic situation constitutes a development
of the Anatolian evidence, where the (Mesopotamian) cuneiform writing
system, over and above its normal use for Babylonian texts, was adapted
for a number of languages (Khattian, Hittite, Palaic, even Khurrian). In
9
J.F. QUACK, Die Lehren des Ani. Ein neugyptischer Weisheitstext in seinem kulturellen Umfeld. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 141 (Gttingen. 1994).

THE ALPHABET(S) AT A TURNING POINT

333

addition to it a "hieroglyphic" (i.e. imagerial) pattern was also created,

probably according to the (exterior) model of Egyptian Hieroglyphs. In
conclusion before the introduction of new alphabets in the early first
millennium BC. in Anatolia there was no simplification as in Ugarit with
its own alphabet. On the contrary there was rather an accumulation of
writing systems each one tied to a particular language and its textual
typology in spite of some early translations following in general the
Mesopotamian pattern.

The admittedly better feasibility of Egyptian hieratic script as a

source for alphabets
In the shaping of Egyptian writing two opposite patterns were developed: an imagerial one (hieroglyphs) for the sacred, performative utterances and a non imagerial one (later called hieratic by the Greeks) for
non-sacred, utilitarian and thereafter private use. from which the bookscript originated.
As the alphabetic signs were not imagerial, the supporters of the
Egyptian origin for the alphabets looked at the hieratic script as a possible model. Even though there might be some validity for this submission, it would seem that the new value the hieratic script acquired during
the Ramesside period (i.e. the thirteenth-twelfth centuries BC) is more
important. At that time, hieratic became Egypt's main script, hieroglyphs being restricted more and more to monumental purposes, while
the spreading of writing, in function of Late Egyptian as a current
speech, was conveyed by hieratic, which forcedly was to be the best
known and employed script throughout the territories ruled by Pharaoh.
Even if no alphabetic sign was eventually ever traced from the Egyptian
writing, this overall situation must have had a bearing on the shaping of
the alphabetic letters in an alphabetic style.
Furthermore the script in Late Egyptian texts was no longer as unitary
as it had been earlier, but several scribal methods were admitted, probably covering sometimes even differences in speech: i.e. a fragmented
reality resembling the one presented by the subsequent alphabets. The
Egyptians did not yet write down dialects, for the linguistic knowledge
was at that time not sufficiently advanced, but they enjoyed more freedom in handling the tools of writing, which was no longer felt as a
sacred matter.

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A. ROCCATI

Conclusions
Following the considerations mentioned above, the Ramesside period
displays the most favourable background for the promotion of alphabetic
scripts on account of smaller but developed cultures in search of an identity of their own. It must be stressed that supporting a new script
involves the presence of a high culture capable of assessing a strong
individuality rising against the former existing ones, whereas it develops
a true need for self-representation. For over a century, around the thirteenth century BC, the wide territory ruled by the Pharaoh united countries with different traditions, tongues and beliefs and brought different
peoples in contact with each other. They could observe the existence of
different behaviours, notice the possibility of confronting and combining
the differences, in the framework of a society that was quite aware of a
changing world. In its turn this led to the need to discover ways of representing the differences and the features of the best characterised units,
which is one of the landmarks of the Iron Age. At that time general
social definitions, as had been Aamu (foreigners from Asia) in the Old
and Middle Kingdoms, Apiru (Khabiru), Sherden or Libu10 in the New
Kingdom, began to be restricted and applied to special groups who were
to bear them as ethnic names in the period that followed.

THE ALPIiABET(S) AT A TURNING POINT

335

What Sethe defines as a "cataclysm" could also be considered the

acknowledgement of an already existing reality, which had been underway for some time". Everybody would agree on the impact that alphabets had from the end of the second millennium BC. What the present
paper has shown is a number of premises which prepared and justified
the spread of Phoenician and Greek scripts all over the Mediterranean.

Something like that must have occurred to the spreading of writing,

which gave rise to a variety of applications, all of which were built on
the same principle and were quickly scattered along some directions that
may be materialised also by some other class of objects. If we may consider a special phenomenon along the same lines and point out again
Egypt as its main source, then the extraordinary diffusion of scarabs
through the Mediterranean from the reign of Ramses II would be meaningful. On account of its materiality, it does show that the intellectual
paths that travelled across borders were driven by the need to write with
alphabets.
The confirmation of a new and different writing system, the same way
as a new different linguistic situation, is not simply the result of "invention" or of "accident". It mostly depends on some special enunciative
situation that provokes the will for change, according to a number of
already existing premises which had not by themselves the force to
become successful. To some extent the theories of Sethe and Stricker
about the development of Egyptian are compatible with each other.
10
J. OSING, 'Notizen zu den Seevlkern: Es werde niedergelegt als Schriftstck', in:
Festschrift Altenmller (Hamburg, 2003), 315-21.

11
For the theoretical aspects see, also, A. ROCCATI, 'II bilinguismo interno
dell'Egitto', Vicino Oriente 3 (1980), 77-84.