Ancient and ArchaeologyΒ permalink
Ancient Greeks and numbers
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Message 1.Β
Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Saturday, 12th August 2006
Source books in English give many lists of both Phoenician and Greek shipping lading lists, for instance.
How where numbers written in Greek circa 5th CBC
eg "Slave child from Smyrna 10 drachmas."
(I am not about to reopen our slavery debate. I know your stance as you do mine)
Just curious about how numbers were written.
Regards P. -
Message 2
Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Saturday, 12th August 2006
That was intended for E-Nik, of course - the slavery bit.
P.
Two more minutes of useful living time spent on posting count down - ugh! Perhaps if I read my posting first....... -
Message 3
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 12th August 2006
... haha Prsiscilla! If you did not want comments you would not comment either!
Lucky thing for slaves in ancient Greece that capitalism and communism were not very popular. Certainly, ancient Greek slaves earned a fairer deal than 80% of the current worksforce around the world... at least they knew they would have a house, a wage whatever that was, and a plate of food everyday without having to beg for it...
....No wonder there is not a signle slave revolution recorded in any ancient Greek city all over the Mediterranean apart from Sparta (where it was also an age-old tribal issue).... aaaaa!!! Pretty impressive e? Note done that in most cities slaves sometimes went around armed (e.g. as the local police!) .... do not know what else to say... Why are you so easily fooled with the word "slave" and do not look at the points? Well maybe cos later christians and much later capitalists/communists managed to play with words but did not bother to change the situations!
Ok, keeping apart from that issue that anyway our views are taken for granted, your question is really very simple, Greeks wrote in vertical lists as we do today: e.g. a ship trading different kinds of armory, say helmets, would have the following
Corinthian helmet large 140
Corinthian hemlmet medium 80
Macedonian helmet large 160
Macedonian helmet medium 110
Attic helmet large 120
Attic helmet medium 60
and so on ...
their descriptions usually could vary according to needs, lets not forget that they were even prior to 500 B.C. on their way to standardisation of many products, values and of course measurement systems all necessary for extensive trade taking place in that era. -
Message 4
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 12th August 2006
...unless your question had been actually what was their way of writing numbers - their main system is quite well known... as simple as that: They used the alphabet's letters for number notation (in a decimal system) as well as for musical notation (musical notes).
A=1
B=2
Gamma=3
D=4
E=5
F (Digamma)=6 later since F was taken out of the alphabet as its sound 'W' was not pronounced it was replaced by an 's'
Z=7
H=8
Thita=9
I=10
IA=11
IB=12
... and so on...
Beware though as much as back you go in the past you will find considerable variations as each city prided in its own standards (in parallel to the ones imposed by Delphi or Olympia or any powerful city). It is known they used the usual I, II, III, IIII, Pi, PiI, PiII, from which the Romans were influenced - well its a common sense system.
Also, since arithmetics were most often used for simple concepts in trading applications, they also liked (like many other cultures) abbreviations for some basic numbers such as 5, 10, 100, 1000, 10000 with Pi, D (4 above but as an acronmy here 5!), H, K, M from the first letter of the word - quite practical even for semi-illiterate people to remember.
Necessities of their time meant that numbers up to 1 million would be used (ex. Persian empire, the richest in all ancient world, had less than 200,000 talants of gold, Athens had less than 10,000 and so on... while they suffered inflation they did not reach the point of buying an egg with 5 million drachmas! On the other hand the needs of an army would be measured maximum in numbers of 100,000 thus practically there was no need to design a system that goes up to 1 zillion or something! Lets not forget that our system also is not that practical when going to numbers larger than 1 billion thus we use "," or "." to help us see, then we use the "x10*9" and so on. The need to design a suitable way of noting large numbers was recognised by most ancient mathematicians and several of them proposed their ways -
Message 5
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 12th August 2006
I think 1000=X not K!!! Blatant mistake.
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Message 6
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 12th August 2006
Oh yes, and a last note: the abbreviations for 100, 1000,10000 come after the need to write the numbers in the smallest possible space: at those times paper was not exactly the cheapest thing to buy and there was no constant supply thus mundane things such as product lists were preferrably curved on clay or some sort of stone/shell. Curving the number 10,021 is not the most exiting thing to do but then you can get away with a MKA and you are the best!
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Message 7
Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Sunday, 13th August 2006
Thanks E_Nik for the numeral info - possibly more than I needed to know -
What did you mean about Athens havingxxxxxtalents of gold and Persia xxxxtalents.
Was that in state/polis hands, private - or for Athens what she took from Delos?
And when - both places had their ups and downs over many hundreds of years.
Am not about to discuss anything Macedonian - including helmets and our on-going run in can wait until I need to cheer up a dull day.
There is one thing though.
Regarding the poleis - which do you favour - or if coy about that, for which of them would you have picked up your shield and spear. If you lived there I suppose you'd have had little choice.
And another one. What is your opinion of Lysander? Not sure I have formed one myself - love his name though!!!
Regards P. -
Message 8
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 22nd August 2006
Some interesting questions, though my answer comes a bit delayed since I went back to Greece, visited Chalkidiki (first peninsula) and the next day the whole place got fire (luckily our house escaped some kms away)...
Now what was all about talents in Athens, Pella or Persepolis? Talent was a standard of weight for gold thus we may assume that it did not change from late 5th to late 4th century (death of Pericle and death of Alexander).
It is known that at the heyday of Delian Alliance (lead by Athens) when Athens moved the Alliance Bank to Athens, they had around 10,000 talents - and bear in mind that this is a sum gathered from the economies of a substantial number of city-states, confederations and kigdoms. At that time the most rich Athenians could not boast more than 100 talents!
A similar economy was managed by the Macedonian kingdom just before its attack against Persia - most of which was based on the monopoly of the gold mines of Chalkidiki as well as reparations and taxes gathered by the defeated. However, when Alexander stepped in the palace of Persepolis he found that the treasury contained about 120,000 talents, or so I had read - I do not know if that amount was in gold and if it was present in the palace or just written down and kept in different place(s). In any case it seems actually a small amount if we compare the tiny size of greece and that of ... half of Asia and Egypt! Actually, we have to bear in mind that anyway during that period the Persian state was in difficult financial position and to take into account that huge amounts of money spent in the war against Greeks (lets not forget that they moved armies of about 1 million soldiers, armies that even Romans and none else till 20th century ever moved). Lets not forget that this could be just one of the treasuries of the empire as others could exist in Sousa or Ekvatana (other major cities of the Persian empire).
Just to note done that, anyway most of Macedonian nobles got rich and stayed over Egypt or Syria or Minor Asia, where most of riches existed, and where they established their kingdoms but then a huge transfer of money occured towards Macedonia making it (once and forever till 20th century) the central part of the Greek world in Europe. Just to understand, an average noble of the Macedonian kingdom could have up to 1000 talents. If you compare that to the less than 100 for the richest Athenian (perhaps Corinthians gathered a bit more at that time, cos the political climate aided their business) then you may understand the jealousy and the animosity and why in the end half of Greek cities (led by their local oligarchies of course!) actually aided Romans to end up the Macedonian hegemony over them even if that meant they had lost their independence once for all and to a foreign nation - and that is why Romans recognising that aided a lot these oligarchies in selected cities (like Athens, for example ghhhmmm so much for Athens... and their contribution... ). -
Message 9
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Wednesday, 23rd August 2006
Regarding your last question, my preferences are pretty much known herein, nontheless I wish once again to take the opportunity to remind you of the totally wrong view that most people have of the ancient world, especially on the Greeks (and much more for pre-archaic greeks (myceneans) and post-hellenistic (byzantines)...). I.e. even in the heyday of the so called city-state (that was nowhere near what it describes since a lot of 'cities' had fields here and there... a prime example was Sparta that controlled half of Peloponesus (I wonder why call that a city-state after all?). It is just that the term prevailed and gave the wrong connotations. But then one has to bear in mind that even in the late 5th century, a large percentage (approaching 50%) of Greeks in the mainland lived in federations, confederations and kigdoms rather than in so called city-states.
That is why I keep saying "do not stay on how we call it but stick to the important things".
I will give a more complete answer. If I was a general and wanted to buy weaponry for a whole army I would buy certainly from Macedonians (well... in the late 4th century cos earlier I would buy from them almost-Mycenean like archaic crap) since it was them that developed weaponry for a whole army rather than leave citizens buy each their own weapon... lets not forget that most ancient armies back then where actually motley crews perhaps apart the shields and spears (that had a standard shape and dimension in order to fit in the phalanx). Hence it would be cheaper and of average-to-good quality. If I wanted good quality I would buy from Spartans (I think they had a fame for developing higher quality weapons), preferrably shields, plate mail and swords (though not their short ones). Corinth would be a choice since their famous helmets that could be wore in two fashions (full or balanced over the head) were really cool as well as effective (though they did not allow to hear well the orders). I could buy a shield from Athens but then I think most cities produced shields of the same quality (and shapes were usually similar).
If I wanted to choose a city to leave it would depend: Macedonia (Pella and Dion) for its natural beauty as well as for its facilities (after Amuntas, grandfather of Alexander), Athens for its cultural life, Corinth of course for nightlife (oh yes!)... sorry but Sparta would be just a short visit for camping 2-3 days and not more! However, big time choices would be Ephesos in Minor Asia and of course the greatest city-state of all (and nobody knows it), Syracuse that was 'big' in all terms, power, sciences, politics, commerce, nightlife etc. This is what I am saying: who knows that Syracuse was bigger than Athens and Sparta together and that if it was not for the nearby Carthage that constantly threatened them (with its 100,000s of mercenaries keeping attacking every now and then!) and if they had decided to move east they would certainly break done Athens and Sparta and Corinth altogether at once... no wonder why back then they were calling them Great Greece (S.Italy had actually more greek population than mainland greece - names used here from modern - not to open a discussion about their scientific output). Similar things hold true for Minor Asian cities like Ephesus (which though had less military power since they had been subjugated early by Lydian, Median and Persian Empires successively. The obscession about Athens started only in Roman times when Athenians as faithful allies of Romans had it good while Macedonians and Corinthians and others had it bad having their cities burned and their stuff stolen to the last (for Macedonia this hold partially true as Thessalonika was not distroyed but actually rebuilt since Romans wanted to make it a center instead of the traditional Macedonian centers like the till then capital Pella, Dion and the old capital Argos - for obvious reasons. Of course that explains a lot why we cannot find Corinthian writers to describe us the contribution of Corinthians in the battle of Salamis (for example!) and we find only Athenians writing from their own angle, or why we do not find at all Macedonian writers writing about the campaign of Alexander (and we know they wrote) and we only find texts written 2 and 3 centuries later on which have of course a lot of additions.
Really no matter how shocking is that for some, if one stands up and sees things from above he will find out that the situation back then was really different from what we think nowadays. For a Macedonian like me things are more obvious as our region had been for more than 2300 the center of hellenism in Europe (apart from Konstantinoupolis that is a case apart being in the bordeline with Minor Asia). ... the likes of Sparta had been for 1-2 centuries. Now, if Athens' contribution resonates till nowadays that is also a bit of over-exagerration with political colours ...afterall most philosophers were actually not from Athens (Aristotle was born in nearby Chalkidiki, most were from Great Greece and Minor Asia) while almost all great engineers and scientists were from everwhere else than Athens (a case apart Iktinos and Kalikratis who were great architects).
I will not move it more on the above,just wanted to give an idea, now considering the above what could be my opinion on Lysander, you mean the Spartan leader during the Peloponesian War? Lysander was a capable man, one of the few not to be from high-class families, that managed to prevail among the 'ephoroi' (do not know the translations) and the 2 kings (in that complex and incomprehensible spartan system), he is highly responsible for the victory of Spartans in that war - of course by gaining the Persian help and paying coastal cities and islands (like Rhodes) to give their ships to them (cos spartans had not many soldiers for territorial armies, guess how few they had for ships!). I have no special view on him, just a capable man, the alter-ego of Alkiviadis though more capable, more successful and more faithful to his city than the latter but then he also failed out of favour and retired from public life following the fashion of all great political figures that suffered attacks from political opponents.
Now I do not know why you like that name much, in Greek it sounds average... actually Lyss+ander means this: Lyss+andras (andras=man, Lyss sounds like "lyssa" that is actyually that illness of dogs spitting foam and bitting and making the victim go crazy... eheheh it also means great anger etc., thus Lyssander means a man of great temper... -
Message 10
Posted by Eliezer, the Irish pennywhistler (U4824016) on Sunday, 17th September 2006
Pricilla:
The Greek number system that E-N-E described is based on the Phoenician/Hebrew counting system. Compare:
A=1
B=2
Gamma=3
D=4
E=5
F=6 (sounded as "W")
Z=7
H=8
Thita=9
I=10
Alef-1
Bet-2
Gimel-3
Dalet-4
He-5
Vav-6 (sounded as "W" in ancient times)
Zayen-7
Het-8
Tet-9
Yod=10
and so on.
Ancient Hebrew/Phoenician also had cardinal and ordinal numbers, by the way, in both masculine and feminine forms.
Because of this system of assigning numerical values to letters, every word has a numerical value. There is an entire discipline of Jewish mysticism known as Gematria that is devoted to finding hidden meanings in the numerical values of words. Greek musticism picked up on that as well. -
Message 11
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Sunday, 17th September 2006
Thanks for reminding us the idiotic
Phoenician-Hebrew as if Hebrew knew how to count other things than the chapters in the bible.
Now if Phoenicians used the same method then it is because they used similar alphabets. Uless you believe that the letter gama means "throwstick" (i.e. boumerang!) as those who support the 'from middle east' theory, then you should rather avoid statements like these. Greeks knew how to read and write and maky additions some millenia before Phoenicians that sprung out from nowhere around 1400 B.C. being the first middle eastern culture to write in linear forms and to have a thing for the sea (exactly like Greeks), I hope that the Greek Philistines did not have something to do with that since it spoils the 'Hebrew' contribution, which till now I would restrict simply to the bible and the coran and god help us from other such contributions!
Thank you also for letting us know that pre-christian Greeks picked from ... Hebrew mystiscism... that is unimaginable as Pythagoras (the only one that mainly played with numbers in philosophy picked up such ideas actually from India which had been a source for Hebrew mystiscists as well otherwise the life of Christ would not resemble that much the life of precataclysmic Chrisna who was born as God's image on earth and when he was born the local king killed all knewborn kids because of the prophecy...).
I only need to let you know that for most Greeks Hebrews were just another tribe out of the whole bunch, not more important than the likes of Kardouchians (a do you know them?) and certainly less important than say Etruscans, guess how much less important than Phoenicians. For the 99% of Greeks, they would not even know their existence (apart those poor Philistines that were attacked violently by them apparently for having brought some descent culture on shore). Later Alexander the great passed over them and blatantly ignored them (he would not sit down even to consider such an insignificant nation) but Hebrew propagandists had to write that he met their leaders (hahaha!) and even gave his respect to the one God (hahahahah unimaginable for a man that was about to declare God himself). If Alexander had ever done so he would be assasinated at the very same moment even by his best mates, for Greeks it was unimaginable to do such acts but then for Hebrew propagandists it was cool enough to write such things to convince their younger generations not to be attracted by their superior culture that to a child's eye was much more cool than the life full of inhibitions (e.g. having sex through the sheet, childrens' mutilations etc.), fear and hatred that their prophets taught.
So please spare us the contribution of Hebrew to pre-christian Greek culture. -
Message 12
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Sunday, 17th September 2006
My above harsh answer is dedicated to all tele-evangelists. Also I have but to notice that whenever evangelists want to be harsh on non-believers they talk bad about Phoenicians and bring the terrible story of Baal (a story full of hatred against different cultures). However, in other cases when they realise how backwards had been Hebrews, they use the Phoenicians as if these were the same thing with Hebrews and then equalising whatever they did with them thus presenting some new notion on Hebrew culture. Lets get serious. It is another thing, the Hebrew culture and another thing the Phoenicians that did not also care much about their neighbours. Hebrews did not have a love for the sea and did not even have a love for making colonies. Yes some of the Hebrews had been proficient traders in the example of Phoenicians but their scores went gradually higher only from the Persian Empire and onwards - still in the Hellenistic world they were only developing and only in Roman times they grew fianncially really strong in order to be able to propagandise new religions and make revolutions in eastern Minor Asia having slaughtered 100,000s in the most horrible ways. And at last, we should not tolerate tele-evangelists of any kind to spread such lies to the semi-iliterate cos if you let that then the semi-iliterate finally enforces his own view (as it happened in so many examples). One has to firmly fight such false views.
... unless our dear friend here can give us 1... only 1 proof of the great kingdom of David that even the closest neighbours of Hebrews seemed to fail to notice!!!! As true as Alexander showing respect to their God perhaps? Ha! -
Message 13
Posted by Eliezer, the Irish pennywhistler (U4824016) on Monday, 18th September 2006
Sir, your ranting is pitiable.
The fact is, you are going on and on about things that no one else has brought up. Or care about. Whether or not Alexander visited Jerusalem is not very important here, as that was (or was not) some 1000 years after the time we are talking about.
First you've got Hebrews "not having a love for the sea" but in the next sentence "some of them were proficient traders". Of course it it not possible that the Jews of Zebulun were bright enough to construct ships or keep business records, because they were primitive illiterates who only pretended to have an educational system.
Apparently, they learned everything they knew from "the example of Phoenicians". Lucky thing for the Jews that they had the same alphabet as the Phoenicians. Too bad they couldn't read it, though. Maybe the Phoenicians were cheating them on the spice trade, and they just never knew it!
BTW, I wonder who the Sea People were?
There may be some world where the Jews "made revolutions in eastern Minor Asia having slaughtered 100,000s in the most horrible ways", but that wouldn't be THIS world.
There may be some world where "Hebrew mystiscists" [sic] learned everything from India, but in THIS world my money is on Persia.
I don't know what all that ranting about televangelists is about, and frankly, I don't want to.
What the Hebrew/Phoenician counting system has to do with the extent of King David's kingdom is another mystery. But it is no mystery that you are on the rag about SOMETHING, and it seems to have something to do with "down with the Jews and their records, because God knows the Jews never had an original thought in all their born days". Or maybe Jewish televangelists throwing boomerangs. Or something.
Who knows? Who cares?
Hang in, Pricilla!
Who knows? Who cares? -
Message 14
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 18th September 2006
Pitiable it may be I did not mention that Jewish were incapable of sailing or building ships. I just said that Jewish were increasingly getting proficient traders but then the truth is that they never exactly built any serious navy as their leading traders would much rather prefer travel by land and settle in large cities and do business there rather than take the risk of investing in ships (where earnings were often higher but more risky). I am not the one who will judge them for that choice of theirs fair enough.
What I find though really pitiable is all that mixing of the Phoenicians with Jewish in order to try and imply that Jewish did this and Jewish did that. Honestly I am so fed up with such viewing and that is why I fall harsh on such views. Jewish were never the great nation their prophets thought they were and that is why none of their contemporaries ever mentions them (and if they did they were always mentioned as backwards little tribes of lesser importance). A nice bravo then to Jewish that from lesser importance they managed to pass on two (pitiable of course) religions with which they gained world wide recognition (and managed to spread their business worldwide of course!). No lesser achivement!
From there though to claim they gave the Mediterranean its maths and its letter is really way of the road to the truth. Persia for you, well I have read (and need someone here to verify) that Indian Crisna had an identical birth and a similar life with that of Christ only that his references go back to ... pre-cataclysmic times, as old as that thus poor Indians could not have copied from the Middle East (Israel or Persia).
My persistence on the facts and the harsh way I answer of course will give me a bad name but then I cannot deny to myself the more than blatant observation that for some 5000 years all the Middle East from Mediterranean to the Gulf wrote in cuneiform and never managed to built a ship to travel say till Greece but then when Philistines (Cretans) arrive and establish in Cyprus and southern Palestine (minimum established time that was around 1500 but then the truth is that they were there from much earlier as Cretans crossed the Mediterranean for fun), you have a tedency towards changing cuneiform to linear alphabets (obviously influenced by Egypt that was visited by Cretans as much as often as Semitics) and a tedency for Phoenicians (that became the odd kid of the Middle East) to start building ships and sail around. And I ask: what happened really in those times and they suddenly changed their 5000 years old cuneiform alphabets (sorry but they were in contact back then also with Egypt, at 4000 at 3000 and at 2000 B.C. but only after 1700 B.C. they started preferring the linear-style ones, linear alphabets which had been evolving already in Minoan/Mycenean kingdoms). And why suddenly after 5000 years at last some interest (on the part of Phoenicians only) for the sea? I answer that it was the new arrivals of the early 2nd millenia from the west and nobody else - its a speculation sorry but then a much more reasonable speculation that trying to find semitic words for letter and ending ip in Gamma meaning ... throwstick (sorry I am very reserved on such explanations no matter if Alef=ox seems more rational (though Alef sounds a bit like Alphaos that means the light of sun, who knows... giving such explanations can be very easy and in more than one languages, even specialists can get tricked).
I will not tell you that Greeks invented it all. For me the eastern (and western) mediterranean had been already a neighbourhood even since those times and it should had been a varied composition of tribes that had commerce with perhaps the most rich land of their times, Egypt out of which they took their paradigms for their own writings that tended occasionaly, even often to converge out of the need to have commerce. Only that among that ... Greeks had most of the ships followed only later by Phoenicians! Best example the "middle easterners" that founded a couple of colonies on Cyprus in the 14th century next to the Greek ones. They took the local Linear variation for their needs (named as Cypriotic but I describe it as Linear C as it is just another variation of the Linear alphabets)... and that was just prior to the development of the phoenician alphabet (accidental?). Obviously these middle-easterners had to do something with Phoenicians (others did not borther so much to take it to the sea), thus the whole thing sounds a bit strange.
Really strange and it gets stranger when we come out and say this and that, Jewish had writings and such and others took it from them and such (attention I am not saying the opposite that it was definitely the Greeks... all I said is that the possibilities are more in favour of the one who had earlier linear alphabets and who had the ships..., yes of course Jewish had their alphabets and they might had used actually various alphabets to write down their records since their exile from Egypt as they also did much later. -
Message 15
Posted by Eliezer, the Irish pennywhistler (U4824016) on Monday, 18th September 2006
Well, you just keep on tilting at whatever windmill floats your boat. It's amusing.
"Jewish were never the great nation their prophets thought they were". I never said that or anything remotely like that. Neither did the prophets, who always pictured Judea and Israel as very small seeds being blown about by very large winds. But you just keep on saying it, sonny - over and over again. Maybe that will make it true one day.
"What I find though really pitiable is all that mixing of the Phoenicians with Jewish in order to try and imply that Jewish did this and Jewish did that."
And all I said was the Phoenicians and the Hebrews had the same alphabet and number system. See another windmill, huh?
Judaism only existed (and came up with Xtianity) "to spread their business worldwide of course! No lesser achivement!" Simply amazing duduction, Watson! And very un-biased, too. As Bugs Bunny told Elmer Fudd, "What a maroon, brother! What a maroon!"
"From there though to claim they gave the Mediterranean its maths and its letter is really way of the road to the truth." Never said it. I believe I said (or should have said) that the Phoenician/Hebrew counting system was widespread throught the Near East, and there really is no proof that the Greeks invented it. Certainly none that YOU have adduced.
I really don't feel like explaining Jewish mysticism to you, but trust me - it's partly native and mostly Persian in origin. What Christians managed to steal or borrow 500 years after Jewish mysticism got going is neither here nor there to me. I mean, who the hell cares what they did?
There was some, but not much, intercourse between the Indians and the Hebrews. I would describe it, but I'm afraid you would have an apoplectic siezure.
Ditto for the Jewish shipbuilders of Zebulun. BTW - According to Judges 5:17 Dan had ships. What they did with them I don't know.
You ever notice that the Philistines in the Bible have Semitic names and worship the god Dagon?
Eigth-Century BCE Amos (9:7) mentions 'the Philistines from Caphtor', and Seventh-Century Jeremiah (47:4) mentions 'the Philistines, the remnant of the country of Caphtor'. The Assyrian chronicles only mention the Philistines (Pilisti or Palastu) during and after the time of Adad-Nirari III (809-782 BCE). Not 1500. And not 1200.
Who knows? Not you and not me, brother.
In Hebrew "aleph" means an ox. Always has. In Hebrew, "gimmel" means camel. That's where WE got the word (via the Arabs). Somehow I don't picture the monotheistic Hebrews naming their very first letter after "the light of the Sun", what with all the admonitions not to worship said Sun. Especially with "aleph" looking pictographically like an ox.
Despite your ranting to the contrary, the Hebrews had very little cultural truck with the Egyptians. Their own history claims that they are from what we call Iraq, and that's where the earliest Hebrews went for wives. They only went to Egypt for grain and didn't stick around. That's what they say, anyway. There are lots of Iraqi words in Hebrew. Almost no Egyptian ones
Do you realize that you are the only person on Earth who cannot distinguish Hebrews from Israelites from Judeans? You are the only one who consistantly calls them "Jewish" -- "yes of course Jewish had their alphabets" and "all that mixing of the Phoenicians with Jewish". How odd. I wonder if you do it on purpose or out of ignorance?
"Really strange and it gets stranger when we come out and say this and that, Jewish had writings and such and others took it from them and such". If only I had said that. Culture went back-and-forth across the Fertile Crecent along the trade routes. There really is no way of knowing who came up with what first out there. I mean, didn't the Brits adopt rock 'n' roll about 12 minutes after teenagers in Cleveland did (via Allan Freed)?
For what it's worth, Hayim Goren Perelmuter writes (in "Siblings") : "There were some great eras of proselytization in Jewish history. The period from the end of the Judges to the establishment of the Davidic monarchy was one. The surviving Canaanites were not eliminated. They became Jews. Then we had the period of the second pre-Christian century when many Phoenicians in the Roman Empire became Jews after their defeat in the Punic Wars."
Hmmn.
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