Global InformationPhoenician arrowheads information
The Phoenician arrowheads or Phoenician javelin heads are a well-known group of almost 70 Phoenician inscribed bronze arrowheads from the 11th century BC onwards.[1]
The first known inscription was the Ruweiseh arrowhead; it is the only one found in situ. The other arrowheads are of unknown origin, having first appeared on the antiquities markets.[2]
The inscriptions are thought to be personal names.[3]
They are known as KAI 20–22.
Because of their early date, the arrowheads are important in the modern understanding of the history of the Phoenician language; in particular, the 1953 discovery of the three al-Khader arrowheads is said to have "initiated a new stage in the study of alphabetic origins".[4] It has become conventional to refer to the written script as "Proto-Canaanite" until the mid-11th century BC, the point at which "Phoenician" is first attested on the arrowheads.[5] Frank Moore Cross and Józef Milik wrote in 1954 that "[t]he el-Khadr javelin-heads provide the missing link between the latest of the Proto-Canaanite epigraphs, and the earliest of the Phoenician inscriptions".[6][7][8][9]
- ^ Golub 2021, pp. 16–17: "The corpus of inscribed Phoenician bronze arrowheads has grown continuously since 1926, when the first one was discovered in Ruweiseh in southern Lebanon. In 1982, the corpus included 20 arrowheads (Bordreuil 1982: 187–192; Starcky 1982: 179–186; Abousamra 2014: 47) and by 1999 the corpus had grown to 51 (Deutsch and Heltzer 1999: 13–19). By 2020, the number had reached 68: 67 pieces were counted by Abousamra (2014: 47–48) and one was recently published by Mitchell (2020: 44–52)."
- ^ Golub 2021, pp. 16–18: "Apart from the first arrowhead from Ruweiseh, which was found in situ, all the others came from the antiquities market and their provenance is therefore doubtful. Four arrowheads published by Elayi (2005: 35) were said to have been found in Lebanon, that of ’d‘ bn b‘l’ was said to come from “Barouk,” possibly Baruk in Lebanon (Mitchell 2020: 45), and the arrowheads of ‘bdlb’t and ‘bdlb’t bn‘nt were said to have been discovered in el-Khaḍr, near Bethlehem (Deutsch and Heltzer 1999: 13, II–IV, 14, XI). Some arrowheads were purchased in Lebanon, some in London, and one in Damascus, those said to be from el-Khaḍr were purchased in Jerusalem and Amman, and the provenance of many others is unknown (Deutsch and Heltzer 1999: 13–19). However, the Phoenician script and a few references in the inscriptions to gentilics, such as the Sidonian, the Tyrian, and king of Amurru (Deutsch and Heltzer 1999: 14, VI, 16, XXVI, XXIX), suggest that these inscribed bronze arrowheads originated in Lebanon, the site of ancient Phoenicia."
- ^ Golub 2021, pp. 16–40.
- ^ Cross, Frank Moore (1980). "Newly Found Inscriptions in Old Canaanite and Early Phoenician Scripts". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 238 (238 (Spring, 1980)). The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The American Schools of Oriental Research: 1–20. doi:10.2307/1356511. JSTOR 1356511. S2CID 222445150.
The discovery in 1953 of three arrowheads from 'El-Khadr inscribed with three identical inscriptions of the late 12th century B.C. initiated a new stage in the study of alphabetic origins (Cross and Milik 1954: 5–15; Cross and Milik 1956: 15–23). The brief texts of the arrowheads provided secure readings of alphabetic signs at precisely the period of transition from the older pictographic (ProtoCanaanite or Old Canaanite) script to the Early Linear (Phoenician) alphabet.
- ^ Markoe, Glenn E., Phoenicians. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22613-5 (2000) (hardback) p. 111.
- ^ Milik & Cross 1954, p. 11.
- ^ Cross, Frank Moore (1991). Senner, Wayne M. (ed.). The Invention and Development of the Alphabet. Bison books. U of Nebraska Press. pp. 77–90 [81]. ISBN 978-0-8032-9167-6. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
{{cite book}}:|work=ignored (help) - ^ Frank Moore Cross and J. T. Milik, “A Typological Study of the El-Khadr Javelin and Arrowheads,” ADAJ 3 (1956): 15–23: "Thus the little inscriptions on the javelin-heads are the earliest exemplars of conventionalized alphabetic script. At the same time, they establish beyond cavil that the 'Phoenician' alphabet evolved from a Proto-Canaanite precursor."
- ^ Senner, W.M. (1991). The Origins of Writing. Bison books. University of Nebraska Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-8032-9167-6.
The precise relationship between the Old Canaanite alphabet and the Early Linear Phoenician script remained uncertain until 1953, when a group of inscribed arrowheads was found near Bethlehem at 'El-Khadr. These inscriptions, from the end of the twelfth century (ca. 1100) B.C., proved to be missing links in the history of the alphabet… The ' El – Khadr arrowheads come precisely from the time when the Old Canaanite pictographs were evolving into the Early Linear Phoenician alphabet. We were fortunate that each contained virtually the same short inscription…