Wadi el-Hol

Wadi el-Hol is a valley on the Farshut Road, north-west of Luxor on the Qena Bend, situated on the west bank of the river Nile in Egypt. Rock inscriptions in the valley appear to show the oldest examples of phonetic alphabetic writing discovered to date.[1]

Wadi el-Hol inscriptions II drawing

History

In 1993, American egyptologists Deborah Darnell and her then husband John Darnell found letters in two single-line rock inscriptions carved into limestone cliffs in the Wadi el-Hol valley. They returned to the site for several seasons through the 1990s to further study the inscriptions. In 1999, they finally published their research, concluding that they had found the earliest surviving alphabet, dating back to around 1800 to 1900 BCE.[2] [3] In particular, the inscriptions appear to resemble the Proto-Sinaitic script from Serabit el-Khadem.

See also

References
  1. Baker, Dorie (13 December 1999). "Finding sheds new light on the alphabet's origins". Yale Bulletin and Calendar.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. "Oldest alphabet found in Egypt". BBC. 15 November 1999.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. WILFORD, John Noble (13 November 1999). "Discovery of Egyptian Inscriptions Indicates an Earlier Date for Origin of the Alphabet". The New York Times.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

Further reading
  • 'Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi el-Hôl: New Evidence for the Origin of the Alphabet from the Western Desert of Egypt' by By John Coleman Darnell, F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Marilyn J. Lundberg, P. Kyle McCarter, Bruce Zuckerman with the assistance of Colleen Manassa; THE ANNUAL OF THE AMERICAN SCHOOLS OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH Volume 59, 2005
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