Samaritan writing and writings

Abstract

The interest of modern scholarship in the history of the Samaritan people, their literature and the material remains of their past is a continuous trend started in 1907 by James Allen Montgomery. The script on the early silver coins of Samaria from the fourth century BCE is palaeo Aramaic, however, using in some cases palaeo-Hebrew letter forms. Meshorer and Qedar referred to the script of the legends on these coins as revealing a ‘mixed nature’. The early history of the Samaritan alphabet and in particular the period of its inception have remained an enigma. Montgomery refrained from suggesting a precise date for its beginning, whilst Purvis concluded ‘that the Samaritan script branched off from the paleo-Hebrew in the late Hasmonaean period’. Other scholars have suggested the first century CE. The present discussion aims to establish at what time the Samaritan alphabet was introduced, or rather created, and what its uses were. THE MOUNT GERIZIM INSCRIPTIONS The publication in 2004 of the Aramaic, Hebrew and Samaritan inscriptions excavated on Mt Gerizim in 1982–2004 presents a very important corpus of epigraphic material. The 395 inscriptions (almost all fragmentary) include 380 in Aramaic and ‘square’ Jewish script (nos. 1–380: ‘Lapidary Aramaic and Proto-Jewish’) and 9 in palaeo-Hebrew (nos. 382–90: ‘New-Hebrew’ script) ascribed to the third and second centuries BCE, antedating the ruthless destruction of the Samaritan temple by John Hyrcanus I in contributor . 113/112 BCE. The excavations revealed only four Samaritan inscriptions (nos. 392–5) attributed to medieval times. Only ten of several dozens of Greek inscriptions from the excavations were published and attributed to Samaritans during the fourth and fifth centuries CE.