The Phoenicians May Have Given Europe and Ancient Israel Their Alphabets, but They Left behind No Literature

Sept. 20 2017

According to most experts, both the Hebrew and the Greek alphabets (from which the Latin alphabet was derived) were based on that used by the ancient Phoenicians, who lived in what is now Lebanon. While fragmentary inscriptions in Phoenician have been discovered throughout the Mediterranean, only recently have archaeologists found a substantial trove of complete texts in the Cypriot city of Idalion. Josephine Quinn comments on what’s in them, and what isn’t:

The new documents were found in a fortified palace complex on Idalion’s western acropolis, and they all date to the 4th and 5th centuries [BCE], a period in which Idalion was under the power of the Phoenician-speaking kingdom of Kition to its south. . . . [T]he material preserved at Idalion is almost all administrative—sets of accounts relating to palace bureaucracy and the organization of agriculture. . . . There are also intriguing glimpses of personal life: a fragment of a letter, and some texts about religious and social rituals. . . .

One thing missing at Idalion is literary texts. This may seem surprising, given the rich trove of mythical texts found at Ugarit [a Syrian city whose residents had developed a writing system a few centuries before the Phoenicians], as well as the contemporary example of the Hebrew Bible and the development in Greece in the same period of the great Homeric epics. . . .

One striking characteristic of the literature produced by Israelites and Greeks is that it often celebrates their identity as a group larger than a city-state, participating in joint expeditions and events over long distances—from the Israelite exodus from Egypt, to the Greek army attacking Troy, to the verses that celebrate victories at pan-Hellenic competitions. The Phoenicians, living in separate city-states with no common political or cultural identity, may simply have had no need for such tales.

Read more at Bible History Daily

More about: Ancient Greece, Cyprus, Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew Bible, History & Ideas, Phoenicia

 

The Mass Expulsion of Palestinians Is No Solution. Neither Are Any of the Usual Plans for Gaza

Examining the Trump administration’s proposals for the people of Gaza, Danielle Pletka writes:

I do not believe that the forced cleansing of Gaza—a repetition of what every Arab country did to the hundreds of thousands of Arab Jews in 1948— is a “solution.” I don’t think Donald Trump views that as a permanent solution either (read his statement), though I could be wrong. My take is that he believes Gaza must be rebuilt under new management, with only those who wish to live there resettling the land.

The time has long since come for us to recognize that the establishment doesn’t have the faintest clue what to do about Gaza. Egypt doesn’t want it. Jordan doesn’t want it. Iran wants it, but only as cannon fodder. The UN wants it, but only to further its anti-Semitic agenda and continue milking cash from the West. Jordanians, Lebanese, and Syrians blame Palestinians for destroying their countries.

Negotiations with Hamas have not worked. Efforts to subsume Gaza under the Palestinian Authority have not worked. Rebuilding has not worked. Destruction will not work. A “two-state solution” has not arrived, and will not work.

So what’s to be done? If you live in Washington, New York, London, Paris, or Berlin, your view is that the same answers should definitely be tried again, but this time we mean it. This time will be different. . . . What could possibly make you believe this other than ideological laziness?

Read more at What the Hell Is Going On?

More about: Donald Trump, Gaza Strip, Palestinians