ORIGIN OF THE ALPHABET.

Shannon News, 5 August 1927, Page 3

ORIGIN OF THE ALPHABET.

SINAI INSCRIPTIONS. Fragments of the Sinai inscriptions, which are alleged to be in the earliest Semitic script, were taken to the Cairo Museum by the Havard-Michigan Sinai expedition! 'mese inscriptions, carved on statues and other stone monuments, were found by Sir Flinders Petrie, and copies were made by hand. They are recognised to be 3000 or 4000 years old, and in them, Dr. Alan Gardiner proposed ttf find the origin of the Phoenician, and consequently also of the Greek and our own alphabet. The subject has been the cause of vigorous controversy'"during the last 12 years. The debate took a new turn about two years ago, when Professor Hugo Grimme, or Munich, attempted to read into the inscriptions a contemporary allusion to Moses. Most scholars have regarded Professor Grimme's theory as wholly fantastic. At the time ■'that the Grimme theory was put forth Dr. Gardiner urged the need of further search in Sinai for more of tlie same kind and that the stones left there by Sir Flinders Petrie should 1)0 taken to a museum where they can accessible to all scholars. Dr. Gardiner and Professor- Breasted had planned an expedition for 1924, but the project had to be abandoned. There followed the Harvard-Michigan expedition. In addition to obtaining fragments of the original inscriptions, the expedition found two others. With the assistance of these results, the vexed question of the origin of the alphabet may now be settled. "