Phoenician alphabet

Period

c. 1050 BC

Map

Inventions map

The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad that was used across the Mediterranean civilization of Phoenicia for most of the 1st millennium BC. It was one of the first alphabets, attested in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean basin. In the history of writing systems, the Phoenician script was also the first to have a fixed writing direction—while previous systems were multi-directional, Phoenician was written horizontally, from right to left. It developed directly from the Proto-Sinaitic script used during the Late Bronze Age, which was derived in turn from Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Sources: Wikipedia — Phoenician alphabet · CC BY-SA 4.0

Earlier and later events nearby

1. c. 10000–3000 BCNeolithic Revolution
2. 1274 BCBattle of Kadesh
3. c. 1050 BCPhoenician alphabetThis page
4. 587 BCSiege of Jerusalem (587 BC)
5. c. AD 30Crucifixion of Jesus
6. AD 66–74First Jewish–Roman War

Who ruled this land

States that held this place in the historical borders data (Cliopatria). Years are approximate, as fine as the data's snapshots (every few years to a century). Tap to open the map for that year.