UCLA

This dissertation explores connections between early Iron Age alphabetic writing culture in the southern Levant (13th – 6th centuries) and Egyptian writing practices, both to posit the direct inheritance of various aspects of the former from the later and to shed light on documentary and writing practices in the southern Levant from the much well understood, and better materially attested, corpus of Egyptian. The dissertation combines anthropological and sociolinguistic views of writing, viewing writing as both human technology and visual communicative media, as broad theoretical frameworks for the investigation of writing as a “culture” and to provide some framework for beginning an investigating into its “origin” in the southern Levant.As human technology, written objects are here viewed as emblematic of the choices of actors in deliberate engagement with the material world. As such, epigraphs are viewed as material culture and themselves pieces of writing as a technological system. Thus, evidence is not limited to the epigraphs for their linguistic content but expands to include linguistic evidence related to writing and the evidence of writing associated material culture that shed light of the activity of writers (weights, seals, etc.). Aspects of production and use of materials are integral to understanding written objects as material culture. As such, linguistic, technological, and material data are brought together to describe the material processes of bringing a text into being, with a focus on the ways in which particular materials both index and generate socially significant meaning in the community of writers. As visual communicative media, written objects are here viewed as the creative products of writers who make distinct choices about the way in which a written object appears and how a text ultimately comes into being. As such, the letters on written objects become emblems of the techniques writers use, the postures they embody, and assumptions that they must make in constructing a written text. The method of drawing a letter (orthography; ductus), the final appearance of the letter (typography; allography), the use and integration of notation systems and associated symbols (numerical, metrological, and mathematical), the color and size of the letters (semiotics of typography), the direction of the letters, and the organizational plan of letters and written sigla (format and layout) are all valuable evidence for understanding writing culture as indwelt and shaped by writers themselves. These two aspects of writing culture undergird parts one (material) and two (practice) of the dissertation, respectively. The dissertation argues that Egyptian influence can be shown in both regards. From the material basis for writing, which includes the distinct writing lexicon (pen, ink, and palette) to the meaning and organization of visual aspects of writing, the influence of Egyptian writing culture on the communities responsible for proliferating the early alphabet at the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 1st millennium was pervasive and original. Appreciating the depth and breadth of the influence of Egyptian writing practice on alphabetic writing communities in the southern Levant during Late Bronze and Iron ages encourages further inquiry into cross-cultural exchange between Egypt and the Levant at the level of literature and religion.