page_title: Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
section_title: Decline and late survival
hierarchical_section_title: Paleo-Hebrew alphabet / History / Decline and late survival
caption_attribution_description: JUDAEA, Bar Kochba Revolt. 132-135 CE. AR Sela – Tetradrachm (28mm, 14.07 g, 11h). Undated issue (year 3 - 134/5 CE). Temple facade, the Ark of the Covenant within; star above / Lulav with etrog. Mildenberg 85.12 (O127/R44´); Meshorer 233; Hendin 711. Near EF, toned, light deposits.
context_page_description: The Paleo-Hebrew script, also spelled Palaeo-Hebrew, also known as Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, was the script used in the historic kingdoms of Israel and Judah, specifically to record the Ancient Hebrew language, including the texts of the Hebrew Bible in its original script. Old Hebrew, like the Phoenician alphabet, is a slight regional variant and an immediate continuation of the Proto-Canaanite script, which was used throughout Canaan in the Late Bronze Age.
  Hebrew is attested epigraphically from about the 10th century BCE, and no extant "Phoenician" inscription is older than 1000 BCE. The Phoenician language, Hebrew language, and all of their sister Canaanite languages were largely indistinguishable dialects before that time. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet is an abjad of 22 consonantal letters. Use of the term "Paleo-Hebrew alphabet" is due to a 1954 suggestion by Solomon Birnbaum, who argued that "[t]o apply the term Phoenician to the script of the Hebrews is hardly suitable".
  The earliest known examples of Proto-Hebrew writing date to the 10th century BCE.
context_section_description: After the Babylonian capture of Judea, when most of the nobles were taken into exile, the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet continued to be used by the people who remained. One example of such writings are the 6th-century BCE jar handles from Gibeon, on which the names of winegrowers are inscribed. Beginning from the 5th century BCE onward, the Aramaic language and script became an official means of communication. Paleo-Hebrew was still used by scribes and others.
  The Paleo-Hebrew script was retained for some time as an archaizing or conservative mode of writing. It is found in certain texts of the Torah among the Dead Sea Scrolls, dated to the 2nd to 1st centuries BCE: manuscripts 4Q12, 6Q1: Genesis. 4Q22: Exodus. 1Q3, 2Q5, 4Q11, 4Q45, 4Q46, 6Q2, and the Leviticus scroll (11QpaleoLev). In some Qumran documents, the tetragrammaton name of the Israelite deity, YHWH, is written in Paleo-Hebrew while the rest of the text is rendered in the adopted Aramaic square script that became today’s normative Jewish Hebrew script. The vast majority of the Hasmonean coinage, as well as the coins of the First Jewish–Roman War and Bar Kokhba's revolt, bears Paleo-Hebrew legends. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet fell completely out of use among Jews only after 135 CE.
caption: Coin from the Bar Kokhba revolt with the Paleo-Hebrew writings. The letters are 𐤇𐤓𐤅𐤕 𐤋𐤉𐤓𐤅𐤔𐤋𐤌 on one side and 𐤔𐤌𐤏𐤍 on the other, meaning 'freedom to Jerusalem' and the name 'Shimon' (חרות לירושל[י]ם and שמעון in modern Hebrew).
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