I just recently came across the following (hat-tip to my friend Allen Hansen):
Stefan Jakob
Wimmer, “The
‘Scribal Turn’ from Egyptian Hieratic to the Alphabet,” Jerusalem
Journal of Archaeology 7 (2024):129-39.
While the entire
article should be read, here is the conclusion (pp. 135-36):
It has been repeatedly noted that Lachish must have played a pivotal
role in the scribal cultural contact that led to the consolidation and
refinement of the Early Alphabet. In other words, it facilitated the “scribal
turn” that, as delineated above, occurred through the impact of hieratic
scribal practice. These processes were quite certainly multi-faceted and
multi-layered, and not single-lane, linear developments.
The mound of Lachish is among the most extensively excavated sites in
the country. In contrast, we should bear in mind the total lack of
archaeological evidence from Gaza, the actual center of the Egyptian
administration over Canaan. What we discover in Lachish may be just a shadow of
what must have occurred in Gaza in terms of cultural contact, scribal training,
and practice.
At any rate, the “scribal turn” from Egyptian hieratic to the alphabet
was triggered by a handshake, which, as far as we can presently determine,
first became tangible in the mid–late 15th century BCE (mid-8th Dynasty). This
handshake was a first “date,” which developed into an intimate “relationship”
in the two Ramesside centuries. It eventually begot a baby, which may have been
fathered in Late Bronze Age Lachish and later became known as “Hebrew
Hieratic.” We know little or nothing about its childhood. It grew up, matured,
and made a career later in the Iron Age, from the 8th century BCE on, before it
suddenly died in 587 BCE.
