The Ugaritic Cuneiform and Canaanite Linear Alphabets

Abstract

OF the various studies devoted to the relationship between the Ugaritic alphabet and the Proto-Canaanite script,1 only a few have noted the morphological between the script of Ugarit and the Canaanite alphabet, whose development can be traced from its earliest stages in which it utilizes pictographs to the more familiar Phoenician-Hebrew letters well attested throughout the first millennium B.C. Although several of the signs of Ugarit were seen to be similar, if not identical, to those of the later Phoenician-Hebrew script,2 most scholars believed these to be coincidental-due to the limited number of wedges used in the formation of the Ugaritic signs-and stressed the fact that the cuneiform alphabet of Ugarit is an invention unrelated to the Canaanite alphabet in its morphology.3 In discussing the Ugaritic alphabet it is sometimes overlooked that this script was also utilized in Canaan proper, not only at Ugarit. Furthermore, F. M. Cross, Jr. and D. N. Freedman4 had already called attention to the fact that not only was this alphabet utilized in Canaan5 but that the inventor of this script was acquainted with the Proto-Canaanite alphabet. They believe, however, that the Ugaritic script was not a conscious imitation of the Proto-Canaanite, and concluded that resemblances between the 15th century Ras Shamrah alphabet and the later Phoenician alphabet are purely