Byblos syllabary

Byblos syllabary
Type	Undeciphered (probably a syllabary)
Languages	Unknown
Time period	Estimated between 1800 BC and 1400 BC
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs/hieratic? Byblos syllabary

The Byblos syllabary, also known as the Pseudo-hieroglyphic script, Proto-Byblian, Proto-Byblic, or Byblic, is an undeciphered writing system, known from ten inscriptions found in Byblos, a coastal city in Lebanon. The inscriptions are engraved on bronze plates and spatulas, and carved in stone. They were excavated by Maurice Dunand, from 1928 to 1932, and published in 1945 in his monograph Byblia Grammata. The inscriptions are conventionally dated to the second millennium BC, probably between the 18th and 15th centuries BC.

Examples of the script have also been discovered in Egypt, Italy, and Megiddo (Garbini, Colless).

The Byblos script is usually written from right to left; word dividers are rarely used. The ten known inscriptions, named a to j in their order of discovery, are:

Isolated characters from the Byblos syllabary have also been found on various other objects, such as axes and pottery. Also, a spatula is known which has on the front side a Phoenician inscription and on the back side traces of a Proto-Byblian inscription—about half a dozen proto-Byblian characters are recognizable. The Phoenician inscription on this spatula is dated to the 10th century BC which suggests that Pseudo-hieroglyphs may have remained in use longer than is usually assumed.

Also, part of a monumental inscription in stone has been found in Byblos in a script that seems intermediate between the Pseudo-hieroglyphs and the later Phoenician alphabet. 21 characters are visible; most of them are common to both the Pseudo-hieroglyphic script and the Phoenician alphabet, while the few remaining signs are either Pseudo-hieroglyphic or Phoenician (Dunand, Byblia Grammata, pp. 135–138).

Each cell in the above table shows a sign (upper left), its Dunand code number (lower left), its frequency (lower right), and indicates (upper right) whether it was used on tablets (T), spatulas (S), or monuments (M). Signs in different cells may actually be writing variants of a single sign; for example, in the top row the signs H6, G17, and E12 are probably the same sign.

The ten main Pseudo-hieroglyphic inscriptions together contain 1046 characters, while the number of 'signs', that is different characters, is given by Dunand as 114. Garbini has noted that the latter number probably is too high, for two reasons. First, Dunand's sign list includes heavily damaged characters for which it is impossible to say whether they really constitute a new sign. Secondly, writing variants clearly existed, for example between the "monumental" style of the steles and the "linear" style of the spatulas and tablets. Taking these variants into account would reduce the total number of signs.