“Wadi el-Ḥôl Inscription 2 and The Early Alphabetic Graph ǵ, ǵull-, ‘yoke’.”

volume 2 (2013), no. 2

Edited byGary N. Knoppers (University Park PA), Oded Lipschits (Tel Aviv), Carol A. Newsom (Atlanta GA), and Konrad Schmid (Zürich)

Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel is a new, peer-reviewed, quarterly journal focusing primarily on the biblical texts in their ancient historical contexts, but also on the history of Israel in its own right. Each issue has a topical focus. The primary language is English, but articles may also be published in German and French. A specific goal of the new journal is to foster discussion among different academic cultures within a larger international context pertaining to the study of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel in the first millennium b. c. e.

Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel ist eine neue Zeitschrift, die viertel jährlich erscheint und deren Beiträge durch einen Peerreview-Prozess evaluiert werden. Ihr Thema sind die Texte der hebräischen und ara mäi schen Bibel in ihren historischen Kontexten, aber auch die Geschichte Israels selbst. Jedes Heft wird einen thematischen Fokus haben. Die meisten Beiträge werden in Englisch verfasst sein, Artikel können aber auch auf Deutsch oder Französisch erscheinen. Ein besonderes Ziel der Zeitschrift besteht in der Vermittlung der unterschiedlichen akademischen Kulturen im globalen Kontext, die sich mit der Hebräischen Bibel und dem antiken Israel im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. beschäftigen.

Associate Editors (2012–2015)Erhard Blum, Tübingen; John Day, Oxford; Louis Jonker, Stellenbosch;John Kessler, Toronto; Jacqueline E. Lapsley, Princeton; Martti Nissinen, Helsinki; Thomas Römer, Paris/Lausanne; Christoph Uehlinger, Zürich;David Vanderhooft, Boston; Nili Wazana, Jerusalem

Mohr Siebeck www.mohr.de

22

Hebrew

Bible and Ancient Israel

2Volume 22013

Trends in Northwest Semitic, Hebrew, and Aramaic Epigraphy

David S. Vanderhooft Trends in Northwest Semitic, Hebrew, and Aramaic Epigraphy 121 – 124

David S. Vanderhooft Wadi el-H. ôl Inscription 2 and The Early Semitic Alphabetic Graph *g, *gull-, ‘yoke’ 125 – 135

Aren Wilson-Wright Interpreting the Sinaitic Inscriptions in Context: A New Reading of Sinai 345 136 – 148

Israel Finkelstein and Benjamin Sass The West Semitic Alphabetic Inscriptions, Late Bronze II to Iron IIA: Archeological Context, Distribution and Chronology 149 – 220

Nadav Na’aman A Sapiential Composition from H. orvat ῾Uza 221 – 233

André Lemaire Remarks about Realia and Other Hebrew Words in the Moussaieff Collection Ostraca 234 – 242

Jan Dušek Aramaic in the Persian Period 243 – 264

Deborah Sweeney The Tel Aviv University Serabit el-Khadem photograph archive 265 – 273

Mohr Siebeck

Hebrew Bible and Ancient IsraelHerausgegeben von Gary N. Knoppers (University Park PA), Oded Lipschits (Tel Aviv), Carol A. Newsom (Atlanta GA) und Konrad Schmid (Zürich)Redaktion: Phillip Michael Lasater (Zürich)

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ISSN 2192-2276 (Gedruckte Ausgabe)ISSN 2192-2284 (Online-Ausgabe)

David S. Vanderhooft

Wadi el-H˙ol Inscription 2 and The Early Semitic

Alphabetic Graph *g, *gull-, “yoke”1

In the second of two early alphabetic inscriptions from the Wadi el-H˙ol in Egypt, an

unidentified graph appears twice. I hypothesize that the acrophone for the graph isthe double ox-yoke with neck thongs on each end, which was called a *gullu, “yoke”in Proto-Northwest Semitic. According to this hypothesis, *gullu is the acrophone forthe Proto-Semitic phoneme */g/. On this basis, I offer a tentative decipherment of theinscription.

In 2005, J.C. Darnell, F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp, M. Lundberg, P.K. McCarterand B. Zuckerman offered an exemplary publication of two earlyalphabetic inscriptions discovered in the Wadi el-H

˙ol, Egypt.2 The two in-

scriptions have contributed substantially to analysis of the origin andevolution of the earliest Semitic alphabet.3 The second of the Wadi el-H

˙ol

inscriptions contains a graph that occurs twice, but which has resisteddefinitive decipherment. The graph – the second from the beginning andthe third to last in the vertical inscription – consists of an almost semi-

1 In memory of Frank Moore Cross. News of Professor Cross’s death came as I wasworking on the manuscript. His work on the early alphabet spanned many decadesand I know that he was delighted by the discovery of the Wadi el-H

˙ol texts. I offer

the present paper as a token of gratitude for what he imparted to so many students.2 J. C. Darnell et al., Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi el-H

˙ol: New

Evidence for the Origin of the Alphabet from the Western Desert of Egypt (AASOR 59;Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2005).

3 See, since the publication of the new inscriptions, G. J. Hamilton, The Origins of theWest Semitic Alphabet in Egyptian Scripts (CBQMS 40; Washington: Catholic BiblicalAssociation, 2006); O. Goldwasser, “Canaanites Reading Hieroglyphs: Horus IsHathor? – The Invention of the Alphabet in Sinai,” Egypt & Levant 16 (2006): 121–160; idem, “The Advantage of Cultural Periphery: The Invention of the Alphabet in Sinai(circa 1840 B.C.E),” in Culture Contacts and the Making of Cultures: Papers in Homageto Itamar Even-Zohar (ed. R. Sela-Sheffy and G. Toury; Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Unitof Culture Research, 2011), 255–316; B. Sass, “Wadi el-Hol and the Alphabet,” inD’Ougarit a Jerusalem. Recueil d’etudes epigraphiques et archeologiques offert a PierreBordreuil (ed. C. Roche; Orient & Mediterranee 2; Paris: De Boccard, 2008), 193–203;and more generally, with particular attention to the emergence of Hebrew, S. L. Sanders,The Invention of Hebrew (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 49; 76–102; and C.A. Rollston, Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence fromthe Iron Age (Archaeology and Biblical Studies 11; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature,2010), 11–18.

HeBAI 2 (2013), 125–135ISSN 2192-2276

DOI 10.1628/219222713X13757034787711© 2013 Mohr Siebeck

e-offprint of the author with publisher’s permission

circular stroke, open at the top, with closed loops on each end (fig. 1). Theeditors argue that the sign derives “from the Egyptian hobble-t sign,” butthey sound a note of caution: “short of a completely compelling decipher-ment . . . any alphabetic value assigned to this sign will remain hypo-thetical.”4 As with other letters of the early Semitic alphabet, the acrophonefor the graph ought to derive from a common noun, but its identity hasremained a mystery.

In this paper, I hypothesize that the acrophone for the graph is thedouble ox-yoke with neck thongs on each end, which was called a *gullu,“yoke” in Proto-Northwest Semitic. According to this hypothesis, *gullu isthe acrophone for the Proto-Semitic phoneme */g/, a voiced, post-velarfricative.

In Proto-Semitic, /g/ was a distinct phoneme, as G. Rendsburg, A.Rubin, and J. Huehnergard have reiterated.5 As others have long notedconcerning the early Semitic alphabet, however, no convincing identi-fication yet exists for either the graph for g or its correspondingacrophone.6

4 Darnell et al., Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions (see n. 2), 84; the editors did notattempt a reading of the text. The sign is V.13 in A. H. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar(3rd ed.; Oxford: Griffith Institute, 1957), 523. Other efforts to decipher theinscription include: Hamilton, Origins (see n. 3), 327–330, who offers no completereading; and Goldwasser, “Canaanites Reading Hieroglyphs” (see n. 3), 150, whodoes try to translate it. Hamilton and Goldwasser tentatively suggest that the sign inquestion may derive from the Egyptian hieroglyph k3, “raised hands with openpalms,” and that it could possibly represent the Proto-Semitic phoneme /k/, *kapp-(on this theory it would be a biform of the more usual graph depicting a hand torepresent the phoneme /k/). A different solution is proposed here.

5 G. A. Rendsburg, A. D. Rubin and J. Huehnergard, “A Proper View of Arabic,Semitic, and More,” JAOS 128/3 (2008), 534–537 and nn. 9–26. These authors’superlative and thorough presentation of the evidence proves beyond any doubt that,contrary to G. Mendenhall’s claim, gayin was a proto-Semitic consonant. Theyinclude an extensive history of research in their discussion along with relevant bib-liography. See also R. C. Steiner, “On the Dating of the Hebrew Sound Changes *H

˘>

H˙and *G > ʿ and Greek Translations (2 Esdras and Judith),” JBL 124 (2005): 231; for

the evidence attesting to the distinctive reflex of *g in Egyptian transcriptions ofSemitic words down to at least the seventh century, and of Aramaic in demoticscript, see J. E. Hoch, Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdom and ThirdIntermediate Period (Princeton: Princeton University, 1994), 412, and 414–415.

6 For a tentative identification, see W. F. Albright, The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions andTheir Decipherment (HTR 22; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), fig. 1;differently F. M. Cross, Jr. and T. O. Lambdin, “A Ugaritic Abecedary and theOrigins of the Proto-Canaanite Alphabet,” BASOR 160 (1960), 25; B. Sass, TheGenesis of the Alphabet and its Development in the Second Millennium B.C. (Agyptenund Altes Testament 13; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1988), 127–128 (refutingAlbright’s proposal); idem, “Wadi el-Hol and the Alphabet,” 199–200; Hamilton,Origins (see n. 3), 244–246; 330. In fact, given the appearance in Wadi el-H

˙ol

126 David S. Vanderhooft


As mentioned, Darnell et al. suggested that the hieroglyphic Egyptian“hobble-t” sign may be the prototype for the graph in the Wadi el-H

˙ol 2

text. O. Goldwasser has reaffirmed that no connection necessarily existedbetween a chosen graph’s phonetic or logographic value in Egyptian andthe Semitic acrophone used to actualize that particular phoneme.7

Goldwasser has therefore argued, perhaps correctly, that the innovatorswere illiterate in Egyptian.8 In any case, if the early innovators of thealphabet, inspired by the hieroglyphic writing system in Egypt, chose the“hobble-t” sign to represent the phoneme /g/, the Semitic acrophone need

Fig. 1.Wadi el-H

˙ol Inscription 2 (Photograph by Bruce Zuckerman and Marilyn Lundberg, West

Semitic Research. Courtesy Department of Antiquities, Egypt.)

inscription 2 of a previously unattested graph, Hamilton noted the theoreticalpossibility that *g was a candidate for it, but he offered no reading of the inscriptionon this basis and preferred a different solution (Origins [see n. 3], 246 n. 332; 330).

7 See Goldwasser, “Canaanites Reading Hieroglyphs” (see n. 3), 130–131, 134; andidem, “The Advantage of Cultural Periphery” (see n. 3), 268–269; and also Hamilton,Origins (see n. 3), passim.

8 See especially Goldwasser, “The Advantage of Cultural Periphery” (see n. 3), 263–268.

127


not have had anything to do with the actual value of the sign in Egyptian.The visual form of the Egyptian sign called to mind the object known tothese Semitic speakers as a *gullu, “yoke.” This may also have influencedthe non-naturalistic “odd vertical orientation” of the sign in the Wadi el-H˙ol inscription 2.9

The West Semitic noun *gullu, “(double ox-)yoke,” appears in thefourteenth century El Amarna tablets, where the Akkadian noun nıru,“yoke,” is glossed in one instance (after the Glossenkeil) with the termh˘ullu (EA 296:38: GIS ni-ri : h

˘u-ul-lu); h

˘ullu also appears in one other

Amarna tablet (EA 257:15). In both instances, the speaker in the textasserts that he has, symbolically, brought his neck under the h

˘ullu, “yoke,”

of a superior king.10 As D. Sivan confirmed, the first consonant in thecuneiform orthography of the noun h

˘ullu in the Amarna instances reflects

Proto-Semitic /*g/.11 In a related manner, the Semitic consonant *g isreflected by h

˘a in Ugaritic syllabic transcription.12 The Amarna term h

˘ullu

< *gullu, therefore, was a Northwest Semitic loanword in Akkadian;13

*gullu was the normal term for “yoke” in the Northwest Semitic languages.The noun appears in Hebrew as ʿol.14 As in other Northwest Semitic

languages, ʿ and g were represented graphically in Hebrew by a single letter;the graph ʿ was, therefore, polyphonous, yet the phonemes /ʿ/ and /g/ were

9 On the orientation of the graph, see Darnell et al., Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions(see n. 2), 78, 84; but see the reservations of Goldwasser, “Canaanites ReadingHieroglyphs” (see n. 3), 137; idem, “The Advantage of Cultural Periphery” (see n.3), 272; and Sass, “Wadi el-Hol and the Alphabet” (see n. 2) 198. There is, of course,no reason to assume that the users of the graph should have depicted it in a“vertical” orientation either. The waw sign in the inscription, e. g., is depicted hori-zontally, rather than vertically, which would be the “naturalistic” view of theimplement when in use.

10 “[I]ndeed, now that I have [p]la[ced] . . . of the yoke: h˘u-ul-lu of the king, my lord,

on my neck, I carry it”; “[a]s I have placed my [n]eck in the yoke that I carry, maythe king, my lord, know that I serve him” (W. L. Moran, The Amarna Letters[Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992] 338–339; 310).

11 D. Sivan, Grammatical Analysis and Glossary of the Northwest Semitic Vocables inAkkadian Texts of the 15th–13th c. B.C. from Canaan and Syria (AOAT 214; Kevelaer:Butzon and Bercker; Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1984), 51–52.

12 See Cross and Lambdin, “A Ugaritic Abecedary,” 21–26; J. Huehnergard, UgariticVocabulary in Syllabic Transcription (2 ed.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008),241; and F. M. Cross and J. Huehnergard “The Alphabet on a Late BabylonianCuneiform School Tablet,” Orientalia 72 (2003), 226 n. 10. If *gullu was the originalacrophone for *g, one might expect h

˘u rather than h

˘a as the syllabic equivalent of *g

in Ugaritic, unless the pattern Ca for this phoneme was generated by analogy withothers (e. g., h

˘a for h

˘), or there was a biform of the noun, *gallu, or the Cv pattern

for the syllabic transcriptions was not consistent, or, less likely, a second acrophoneexisted and was known at Ugarit (as in the case of *dalt-/*dag- for /d/).

13 CAD H˘

230, s.v. h˘ullu B (“WSem. lw. and gloss”); DNWSI 843, s.v. ʿl2.

14 Labeled a Primarnomen in HAL, 783, s.v. לע .



distinguished in pronunciation down to at least the third century B.C.E.15 InHebrew, ʿol refers to the entire ox-yoke, and can be used in precisely thesame figurative expression of political subservience to a king as in theAmarna instances (among many examples, see 1 Kgs 12:4 – 14; Jer 27:8).16

The dominant constituent element of the ʿol is the mwt˙h, “yoke-bar,” which

sat ahead of the withers of the traction animals, typically oxen (see fig. 2).17

In Hebrew, the neck thongs that attached to the bar are referred to in onefigurative context as ʾaguddot mot

˙ah, “thongs of the yoke-bar” (Isa 58:6).

Wooden examples of such thongs are known as ox-bows. In Arabic, gulluhas the more specific but related meaning “a ring, or collar, of iron, which isput upon the neck [of a prisoner].”18

The double ox yoke, of course, was widely known in the Near East,including Egypt, since at least the third millennium B.C.E. Yoked tractionanimals were commonly used to pull the scratch-plow, but could also pullcarts or other loads.19 The type of yoke represented by the graph for theacrophone *gullu would correspond best with the withers yoke, ratherthan the fitted “neck-” or “bar-” yoke. The simplest form of withers yokehas a wooden crossbar placed just ahead of the withers of the oxen withthe thongs or bows attached to either end and fitting around each animal’sneck.

Withers yokes appear occasionally in artistic depictions in the NearEast. An Egyptian wooden model group of two oxen pulling a plow with awithers yoke, apparently dating from the Middle Kingdom, belongs to theBritish Museum (fig. 3).

Several Neo-Assyrian reliefs of the first millennium depict bovinespulling carts with a withers yoke. Examples come, for example, from thereigns of Tiglath-Pileser III (fig. 4) and Sennacherib (fig. 5).

The confirmed use of the acrophone ʾalp-, “ox,” for the letter ʾ in theearliest Semitic alphabet reinforces the conclusion that another primarynoun associated with the use of oxen for plowing, *gullu, “yoke,” was used

15 A detailed reconstruction of the relationship of the phonemes may be found inSteiner, “On the Dating of the Hebrew Sound Changes *H

˘> H

˙and *G > ʿ ” (see n.

5), 229–267; also Rendsburg, Rubin and Huehnergard, “A Proper View of Arabic”(see n. 5), 535; J. Blau, Phonology and Morphology of Biblical Hebrew (LinguisticStudies in Ancient West Semitic; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 75–76.

16 For a convenient overview of the use of the term, see DCH, 6:399–400, s.v. לע I.17 G. Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte in Palastina (Gutersloh: Bertelsmann, 1928; repr.,

Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1964–2001), 2:93–105.18 Lane, 2278b, s.v. لغ . M. Dietrich, O. Loretz and J. Sanmartın tentatively identified a

noun ʿl in Ugaritic (Zur ugaritischen Lexikographie XIII,” UF 7 [1975], 157–169,here 165). The proposal, however, remains uncertain.

19 Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte, 2:93–105.

129


in the system. In addition to ʾalp-, “ox,” and gull-, “yoke,” several otheralphabetic graphs likewise had acrophones derived from agriculturalimplements, including lamd-, either “ox-goad” or “coil of rope (for leading

Fig. 2.Y “withers yoke” with double thongs; W,withers (drawing by P. Angiolillo)

Fig. 3(© Trustees of the British Museum)

Fig. 4Palace of Tiglath-Pileser III, Nimrud (© Trustees of the British Museum)



oxen/cattle),” and, perhaps, h˙et-, “fence, enclosure.”20 Of course, in

addition to its use in plowing, it was used for pulling other loads, and wasthus a very widespread technology. Other such clusters of primary nounswere used in the acrophonic system, including, for example, body parts (h,*ha-, “human figure”; y, *yad-, “hand”; k, *kapp-, “palm”; ‘ *ʿayn-, “eye”; p,*pe/i-, “mouth”; and r, *raʾs-, “head”), architectural items (b, *bayt-,“house”; d, *dalt-, “door” [although this letter evidently had an earlyalternative graph from *dag-, “fish”21]; s, *samk-, “pillar, column”; and,evidently as an alternative to “mouth,” p, *pe/i- “edge, corner [of awall]”22), and tools or weapons (g, *gaml-/giml-, “throw-stick”; w, waw-,“mace”23 or “toggle-pin”;24 z, *zayn-, “axe” [which may have had analternative acrophone, *ðay-, “these two”]; and early s/O_ , *O_ann-, “bow”).Thus, *gullu, “yoke,” would be a seamless fit within the acrophonic system.

If it is correct to read the graph in the vertical Wadi el-H˙ol inscription

as g, then several lexical items in the inscription may be explicable. Theproposed sequence of letters in the inscription, following the editioprinceps, and with the newly proposed reading of g, is as follows:

m g t r h ʿ w t p g ʾ l.25

Fig. 5Palace of Sennacherib, Nineveh (© Trustees ofthe British Museum)

20 The grouping of acrophones into categories is artificial, of course, and Hamiltonoffers a somewhat different categorization (Origins [see n. 3], 320–321). For asummary of the meanings of the names, see Hamilton, Origins (see n. 3), 283–284and for his fuller discussion, with bibliography, 29–253.

21 Cross and Lambdin, “A Ugaritic Abecedary,” 25; Hamilton, Origins (see n. 3), 61;Goldwasser, “Canaanites Reading Hieroglyphs” (see n. 3), 136–137.

22 For this alternative, see Hamilton, Origins (see n. 3), 195–196.23 Albright, The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions, fig. 1; Hamilton, Origins (see n. 3), 86–92.24 Goldwasser, “The Advantage of Cultural Periphery” (see n. 3), 269–270.25 Darnell et al., Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions (see n. 2), 83–85. In private corre-

spondence (email of 4/30/2012), Darnell asserts categorically that no additionalgraphs should be assigned to the inscription, against the suggestion of Hamilton toinsert a y as the fifth to last character (Origins [see n. 3], 327–328). The photographsare slightly ambiguous, and I thus defer to Darnell’s careful personal collation. I amgrateful to Prof. Darnell for discussing the matter.

131


The first four letters, I suggest, represent a m-preformative noun of theroot g-t-r. In Ugaritic, the verb /g-t-r/ means “to implore, intercede, ask.”26

Huehnergard tentatively identifies a syllabic transcription of the Dinfinitive of Ugaritic g-t-r and proposes the meaning, “to attack.”27 AUgaritic administrative text names a certain ʿbdrsp bn gtr, where the latteris obviously a personal name (KTU 4.754:16), while the Amarna personalname ia-a[h

˘]-ti-ri might derive from the root g-t-r.28

In Hebrew, ʿ-t-r < *g-t-r, means “to make supplication.” In one case, thenominal form ʿataray means “my suppliants” (Zeph 3:10). The etymologyof the geographical name, ʿeter (Josh 15:42) is uncertain, but it may derivefrom the same root. R. Albertz notes that within the phenomenologicalsphere of biblical prayer, the verb ʿ-t-r pertains especially to humanrequests, often in connection with averting a crisis (although never in thebook of Psalms). The verb appears frequently in the plague narratives ofExodus, where Albertz perceives “clear elements of ‘religious magic,’ theorigins of intercession,” and suggests that “ʿtr apparently indicatedoriginally quite varied types of a representative, placating effect on theenraged God.”29 Although this is perhaps too negative an assessment, it isclear that the verb has the basic meaning of making intercession, often onbehalf of a third party, and, in the N-stem, the verb highlights the deity’sresponsiveness to such intercession.

The m-preformative noun in the Wadi el-H˙ol text would thus have the

meaning “supplication” or perhaps “intercessory request.”I have no concrete proposal for the next four letters, which the editors

read hʿwt. It would be attractive to take these letters as the second elementin a construct chain: mgtr hʿwt, “supplication of hʿwt,” where hʿwt definesa role, title, ethnicon, or name. If the “sitting man” graph, the presumptiveh, is not alphabetic but rather represents a gender-classifier, as Goldwasserhas suggested,30 then the text might read, “supplication of the (male) ʿwt.”The three graphs after the “sitting man,” ʿwt, may then represent, e. g., an

26 DULAT 327, s.v. /g-t-r/ (I) for references.27 Huehnergard, Ugaritic Vocabulary in Syllabic Transcription, rev. ed., 385, 396, 404. I

am grateful to John Huehnergard for bringing this to my attention.28 EA 296:4; see Sivan, Grammatical Analysis, 207; and DULAT, 327, s.v. /g-t-r/ (I),

which identifies the first consonant as /g/ and thus furnishes the correct etymology.Hess doubts this solution but his argument that the root is not productive of namesis erroneous (R. S. Hess, Amarna Personal Names [ASOR Dissertation Series;Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1993], 79–80).

29 R. Albertz, “ רתע to pray,” TLOT 2:961–962.30 “Canaanites Reading Hieroglyphs” (see n. 3), 147–150; idem, “The Advantage of

Cultural Periphery” (see n. 3), 264–265 n. 21, where she calls it “an intrusivecultureme from the Egyptian script system.”



ethnicon or a professional designation, or a name.31 Darnell et al. alsopublished several Middle-Egyptian inscriptions from the Wadi el-H

˙ol, one

of which mentions “The general of the Asiatics, Bebi.”32 The term“Asiatics,” Egyptian ʿ3 m.w, was “a general designation in Egyptian forSemitic speaking groups.”33 The scribe of the Egyptian inscription “writesthe seated man and woman over plural strokes as the determinatives ofʿ3 m.w, ‘Asiatics,’ the group probably included soldiers and theirfamilies.”34 The editors, moreover, posit a relationship between theEgyptian inscription and the alphabetic ones. Perhaps, then, if the verticalalphabetic inscription was incised in the same period, the alphabeticseated-man graph is, as in the Egyptian inscription, a “person”-determi-native. Goldwasser notes that in another of the Egyptian inscriptions, thegender classifier appears after a title and before a personal name.

Whether or not such a reconstruction is correct, the last fourconsonants appear to form a personal name inclusive of the theophoricelement ʾl, ʾil(u), “god.” The reading ʾl, ʾil(u) for the last two graphs wasalready proposed by Darnell et al.35 One possibility, then, is to read thename pgʾl. In Ugaritic, the nouns pgy/ pgt, mean, respectively, “boy” and“girl.”36 Pgt, which can also mean “princess,” is the personal name ofDanil’s daughter in the Aqhat tale.37 Some have suggested a comparison ofUgaritic pgt with the Hebrew feminine name, puʿah (Exod 1:15).38 Zadokcontests this view, and points out that “LXX Voua probably reflects /ʿ/ andnot /g/” in this name.39 Pgyn also appears as a Ugaritic personal name in

31 Goldwasser, (“Canaanites Reading Hieroglyphs” (see n. 3), 150 n. 154), proposeslinking the sequence ʿwt with the Hebrew name יתוע . However, the putative name inWadi el-H

˙ol 2 cannot then derive, as Naveh suspected for the Hebrew name, from

Arab. gawt, since in an early alphabetic inscription the first consonant of this rootwould be spelled with /*g/, not /*ʿ/, and the last with */h/, not */t/.

32 Darnell et al., Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions (see n. 2), 88.33 Ibid.; also D. B. Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (Princeton:

Princeton University, 1992), 32.34 Darnell et al., Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions (see n. 2), 88.35 Ibid., 85–86.36 DULAT 666.37 Ibid., s.v. pgt 3).38 M. C. Astour, “La triade de deeses de fertilite a Ugarit et en Grece,” Ugaritica IV

(1965): 16, who credits this association to C. Virolleaud, La legende phenicienne deDanel, 99; it is accepted by, e. g., Astour, ibid.; UT 469, §19.2081; and HAL, 868, s.v.

העופ .39 The Pre-Hellenistic Israelite Anthroponomy and Prosopography (OLA 28; Leuven:

Peeters, 1989), 142; Steiner’s catalogue of the reflexes of *ʿ and *g in Greek supportsZadok’s demurral, since etymological *g would usually be represented by c; seeSteiner, “On the Dating of the Hebrew Sound Changes *H

˘> H

˙and *G > ʿ ” (see n.

5), 229–267. Yet the Greek is not perfectly consistent in representing etymological

133


syllabic transcription, pu-h˘i-ya-nu.40 The proposed name in the Wadi el-

H˙ol inscription, Pgʾl, would mean “El’s boy,” or “god’s boy,” a very good

candidate for a West Semitic personal name. The common epithet of kingKirta, glm ʾil, “lad of El,” comes to mind as a parallel to pgʾl, even if theformer is not a personal name. If this is correct, then we may tentativelytranslate the inscription, “supplication of (the X-man), Pagi-ʾili.

Alternatively, the last four graphs in the Wadi el-H˙ol 2 inscription may

not represent a name, but simply an epithet, “lad (i. e. devotee) of El.” Inthat case, (h)ʿwt might be a name or title (preceded by the genderclassifier) and the inscription could be translated, “supplication of (male)ʿwt, lad of El.”

Whether a personal name or epithet, the reading pgʾl strongly supportsthe hypothesis of Darnell et al. that the earliest users of the alphabet inWestern Egypt, and possibly its creators too, were Semites, perhapsdevoted to El. They were either in the employ of Egyptians or allied withthem, maybe in a military context.

Such a “supplication,” carved on the rocks flanking the desolate wadiroad, could well have been inscribed by a traveler seeking divine succor forhis journey, or for that of his party. This is all the more plausible given theeditors’ interpretation of the symbol to the left of the inscription (fig. 1),“an ʿnh

˘-sign, the hieroglyphic representation of ‘life,’ apparently carved at

the same time as the vertical inscription.”41 The Semitic scribe of thegraffito, it would seem, knew the symbolic value of this common Egyptiangraph, whose “attraction lies in the option of presenting the abstractnotion of ‘life’ in a single, concrete, portable icon.”42 The supplication,therefore, would evidently have been for the life of the individual or hisgroup as they traversed the dangerous wadi path.43

David S. VanderhooftAssociate Professor of Hebrew Scriptures

/*g/ with c, so the association of העופ with *p-g-y, even though LXX represents עwith Ø in this case, must be regarded as possible if unlikely.

40 F. Grøndahl, Die Personennamen der Texte aus Ugarit (Studia Pohl I; Rome:Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1967), 172; DULAT 666–667, s.v. pgyn; Zadok, Anthro-ponomy and Prosopography, 142.

41 Darnell et al., Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions (see n. 2), 83.42 Goldwasser, “Canaanites Reading Hieroglyphs” (see n. 3), 121 n. 7.43 I am grateful to several scholars who offered critiques and advice either informally

or on earlier drafts of this paper: Richard Clifford, S.J., John Huehnergard, P. KyleMcCarter, Donald Redford, Mark S. Smith and Larry Stager. John C. Darnellgenerously discussed with me and offered permission to reproduce the Wadi el-H

˙ol

photograph. Patrick Angiolillo provided research assistance; Matt Richey proof-reading. A sort of “eureka” moment came when I considered the early-twentieth



Theology DepartmentBoston CollegeChestnut Hill, MA 02467Boston, [email protected]

century double ox-yoke affixed above the garage of my neighbors, Joe and WendyCostello, who have my thanks. I am exclusively responsible for any errors.

135


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volume 2 (2013), no. 2

Edited byGary N. Knoppers (University Park PA), Oded Lipschits (Tel Aviv), Carol A. Newsom (Atlanta GA), and Konrad Schmid (Zürich)

Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel is a new, peer-reviewed, quarterly journal focusing primarily on the biblical texts in their ancient historical contexts, but also on the history of Israel in its own right. Each issue has a topical focus. The primary language is English, but articles may also be published in German and French. A specific goal of the new journal is to foster discussion among different academic cultures within a larger international context pertaining to the study of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel in the first millennium b. c. e.

Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel ist eine neue Zeitschrift, die viertel jährlich erscheint und deren Beiträge durch einen Peerreview-Prozess evaluiert werden. Ihr Thema sind die Texte der hebräischen und ara mäi schen Bibel in ihren historischen Kontexten, aber auch die Geschichte Israels selbst. Jedes Heft wird einen thematischen Fokus haben. Die meisten Beiträge werden in Englisch verfasst sein, Artikel können aber auch auf Deutsch oder Französisch erscheinen. Ein besonderes Ziel der Zeitschrift besteht in der Vermittlung der unterschiedlichen akademischen Kulturen im globalen Kontext, die sich mit der Hebräischen Bibel und dem antiken Israel im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. beschäftigen.

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“Wadi el-Ḥôl Inscription 2 and The Early Alphabetic Graph *ǵ, *ǵull-, ‘yoke’.”

“Wadi el-Ḥôl Inscription 2 and The Early Alphabetic Graph ǵ, ǵull-, ‘yoke’.”