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Article: The onomastic evidence for Bronze-Age West Semitic.
- Article from:
- The Journal of the American Oriental Society
- Article date:
- July 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 American Oriental Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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1. BRONZE-AGE WEST SEMITIC
The history of the West Semitic family begins in earnest in the late second millennium, more or less around the start of the Syro-Palestinian archeological period known as the Iron Age. (1) It is around 1200 B.C.E. that the Canaanite branch of the family (most importantly, Hebrew and Phoenician) begins to be documented in the epigraphic record, and not long thereafter are dated the earliest Aramaic and Old South Arabian texts; the Arabic and Ethiopic branches follow during the first millennium C.E. In all these cases, except Old South Arabian, archeologically recovered texts show some degree of correlation with traditions preserved in ...