No. The letter shapes and ductus, the lack of tracking and kerning, and more features show clearly that this kind of script at this stage of alphabet development, was *not* designed nor apt for flat writing. This is true for Ancient North Arabian alphabetic script types as well as for the so called Proto-Sinaitics.
Even if you only have engraved script left, there are sufficient parameters to decide whether a certain script type has a flat writing tradition in its background or not. For the Old Byblian Inscriptions for instance (Ahiram, Shipitbaal, Elibaal etc) there definitely was. For the Proto-Sinaitic, the ANA or the Palestinian Graffiti, also Izbet Sarta or Qeiyafa, there definitely was *not*. ¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨ Dr. Reinhard G. Lehmann, Academic Director Research Unit on Ancient Hebrew & Epigraphy FB 01/ Faculty of Protestant Theology Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz D-55099 Mainz Germany [email protected] http://www.hebraistik.uni-mainz.de/eng 11th Mainz International Colloquium on Ancient Hebrew (MICAH) 2013: http://www.micah.hebraistik.uni-mainz.de/204.php > Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:55:01 -0700 > From: K Randolph <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] akkadian bible? > To: George Athas <[email protected]> > Cc: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>, "R. > Lehmann" <[email protected]> > Message-ID: > <CAAEjU0v=rv9nj0pznoqh32nidiln6hymu_ntj3c6fnthfuc...@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > George: > > Seeing as if there was any significant writing from ancient nomadic > cultures, if it was of any decent length to include histories and > religion, would it not have been written on leather or other such > portable materials? And the probability of such materials surviving to > this day is so slight as to be practically zero? > > Weren?t some of the graffiti in the Sinai attributed to nomads? > > Karl W. Randolph. > > On 4/11/13, George Athas <[email protected]> wrote: >> Thanks for the input, Dr Lehmann. Oral tradition for nomadic cultures is, >> indeed, the norm. Writing is quite extraordinary. Do we have any examples of >> writing from ancient nomadic cultures? >> >> >> GEORGE ATHAS >> Dean of Research, >> Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au) >> Sydney, Australia >> >
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