March 1, 2021 Journal article Open Access

Longacre, Drew

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{"@context":"https://schema.org/","@id":"http://doi.org/10.25592/uhhfdm.8898","@type":"ScholarlyArticle","creator":[{"@type":"Person","affiliation":"Qumran Institute, University of Groningen","name":"Longacre, Drew"}],"datePublished":"2021-03-01","description":"<p>Writing is an expression of culture and is subject to intercultural influences. In this&nbsp;comparative study, I argue that Egyptian and Judean Hebrew/Aramaic scripts from&nbsp;400 BCE&ndash;400 CE were heavily influenced by Greek and later Latin writing cultures,&nbsp;which explains many previously inexplicable phenomena. Jewish writers in the third&nbsp;century BCE adopted the Greek split-nibbed reed pen, which dramatically changed&nbsp;the appearance of Hebrew/Aramaic scripts. At the same time, the normal size for Hebrew/&nbsp;Aramaic scripts shrank considerably, the pen strokes became mostly monotone&nbsp;and unshaded, and the scripts became more rectilinear, angular, bilinear, and square.<br>\nEach of these features appears to be due to direct imitation of contemporary Greek&nbsp;formal writing. Beginning in the first century BCE, Hebrew/Aramaic writers began to&nbsp;decorate their formal scripts with separate ornamental strokes like those of contemporary&nbsp;Greek and Latin calligraphic scripts. And from the second or third century CE,<br>\nHebrew/Aramaic calligraphic scripts seem to be increasingly characterized by horizontal&nbsp;shading, parallel to the contemporary rise of Greek and Latin shaded scripts.&nbsp;Furthermore, in the late Roman period, the traditional Hieratic-derived Aramaic numeral&nbsp;system was replaced by an alphabetic numeral system under the influence of&nbsp;the Greek Milesian alphabetic numerals.</p>","headline":"Comparative Hellenistic and Roman Manuscript Studies (CHRoMS): Script Interactions and Hebrew/Aramaic Writing Culture","identifier":"http://doi.org/10.25592/uhhfdm.8898","image":"https://zenodo.org/static/img/logos/zenodo-gradient-round.svg","inLanguage":{"@type":"Language","alternateName":"eng","name":"English"},"keywords":["Manuscript studies","Palaeography","Hebrew"],"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","name":"Comparative Hellenistic and Roman Manuscript Studies (CHRoMS): Script Interactions and Hebrew/Aramaic Writing Culture","url":"https://www.fdr.uni-hamburg.de/record/8898","version":"Draft"}