Samekh
|
||||||||||
| Phonemic representation | s | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Position in alphabet | 15 | |||||||||
| Numerical value | 60 | |||||||||
|
||||||||||
Samekh or Simketh is the fifteenth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Ṣāmek 
, Hebrew ˈSamekh ס, Aramaic Semkath 
, Syriac Semkaṯ ܣ, representing /s/. The Arabic alphabet, however, uses a letter based on Phoenician Šīn to represent /s/ (see there); however, that glyph takes Samekh's place in the traditional Abjadi order of the Arabic alphabet.
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Xi (Ξ, ξ).
The origin of Samekh is unclear. The Phoenician letter may continue a glyph from the Middle Bronze Age alphabets, either based on a hieroglyph for a tent peg / some kind of prop (s'mikhah, Hebrew: סמיכה, or t'mikhah, Hebrew: תמיכה, in modern Hebrew means to support), and thus may be derived from the Egyptian hieroglyph djed.
...
Wikipedia