Ninth century BCE
A stone bearing a Phoenician inscription of the ninth century BCE was discovered among the material of a later structure. It is one of the earliest Phoenician texts found in Cyprus and evidence for Phoenician communities on the island.
The Phoenician script consisted of twenty-two signs. Text was written from right to left and represented mainly consonantal sounds rather than syllables.
The Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and other alphabets developed from the Phoenician system. A small stone in Cyprus therefore becomes part of the much larger history of writing.
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