Innovation & Wealth › Ancient merchants & trade › Phoenician sea trade
Phoenician alphabet
c. 1050 BC· Innovation· Innovations & industries
Mostly agreedGood evidence; some details uncertain.
A script of 22 letters, consonants only, that became the ancestor of the Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Arabic alphabets.
See it on the Innovation & Wealth map →What happened
Earlier writing such as cuneiform used hundreds of signs and took years of scribal training. By about 1050 BC the Phoenicians had refined an older Canaanite script into 22 simple letters, each standing for one consonant sound. Traders and scribes carried it around the Mediterranean. Greeks adopted it around 800 BC and added vowels; from Greek came Latin, the script of English. Aramaic, another branch, led to the Hebrew and Arabic scripts.
Impact on society and the economy
With a couple of dozen signs, reading and record-keeping no longer required a scribal elite. Most of the world's alphabets descend from it.
How we know
Inscriptions such as the Ahiram sarcophagus at Byblos, early Greek inscriptions with near-identical letter shapes, and Herodotus, who said Greeks called their letters 'Phoenician'.
Still debated
When Greeks adopted it, in the 9th or 8th century BC, is debated, as is the dating of key inscriptions such as Ahiram's.
Connections (2)
▸Phoenician sea trade spread Phoenician alphabetMostly agreed
The connection
Phoenician traders and scribes needed a quick script for contracts, inventories and letters. As their ships set up trading posts from Cyprus to Spain, the 22-letter alphabet traveled with them, and trading partners, especially Greeks, adapted it to their own languages.
When and how
Across the Mediterranean, about 1050–700 BC; Greeks adapted it around 800 BC, possibly through contacts in Cyprus or Crete.
How sure are we?
Phoenician inscriptions turn up at colony sites, early Greek letters closely match Phoenician shapes and order, and Greeks called their letters 'Phoenician'.
Debates
Whether merchants or scribes did most of the spreading, and where Greeks first learned it, are debated.
▸Phoenician alphabet supplied the letters, via Greek and Latin, for Gutenberg's printing pressWell documented
The connection
Phoenician traders' 22-letter alphabet passed to the Greeks, then via the Etruscans to Rome. Because Latin script needed only a few dozen letters, Gutenberg could cast a complete font of about 290 pieces, counting capitals, ligatures and abbreviations, instead of the thousands of characters Chinese or Korean printers needed.
When and how
Phoenicia about 1050 BC; Greece by about 800 BC; Rome from about 700 BC; Mainz in the 1440s–1450s.
How we know
Inscriptions trace letter shapes from Phoenician through Greek to Latin; studies of the 42-line Bible count about 290 distinct type sorts.
Debates
How decisive the alphabet was is debated: Korea had metal type and the new Hangul alphabet by the 1440s, yet printing there stayed largely state-run and in Chinese characters.