The swan-song of Proto-Canaanite in the ninth century BCE in light of an alphabetic inscription from Megiddo

Abstract

The paper presents a sherd with the remnant of an inscription, unearthed at Megiddo in the 2014 excavation season in a level affiliated with either the transition from Stratum VB to Stratum VA-IVB, or with Stratum VA-IVB. This is the earliest alphabetic text from the site. The continuation of Proto-Canaanite into the ninth century is then addressed, and other questions concerning the development of the West Semitic alphabet in the tenth-ninth centuries.