CHAPTER XIII--PHOENICIAN WRITING, LANGUAGE, AND LITERATURE.
The Phoenician alphabet--Its wide use--Its merits--Question of its origin--Its defects--Phoenician writing and language-- Resemblance of the language to Hebrew--In the vocabulary-- In the grammar--Points of difference between Phoenician and Hebrew--Scantiness of the literature--Phoenician history of Philo Byblius--Extracts--Periplus of Hanno--Phoenician epigraphic literature--Inscription of Esmunazar--Inscription of Tabnit--Inscription of Jehav-melek--Marseilles inscription--Short inscriptions on votive offerings and tombs--Range of Phoenician book-literature.
The Phoenician alphabet, like the Hebrew, consisted of twenty-two characters, which had, it is probable, the same names with the Hebrew letters,[0131] and were nearly identical in form with the letters used anciently by the entire Hebrew race.

The most ancient inscription in the character which has come down to us is probably that of Mesha,[0132] the Moabite king, which belongs to the ninth century before our era.
The next in antiquity, which is of any considerable length, is that discovered recently in the aqueduct which brings the water into the pool of Siloam,[0133] which dates probably from the time of Hezekiah, ab.

B.C.
727-699.

Some short epigraphs on Assyrian gems, tablets, and cylinders belong apparently to about the same period.

The series of Phoenician and Cilician coins begins soon after this, and continues to the time of the Roman supremacy in Western Asia.