Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Elaine Keown <elaine_keown AT yahoo.com>]

          Elaine Keown
          central Texas

Hello:

I'm looking for help on the history of Aramaic or
Hebrew square script---I'm looking at them as,
basically, a unit.  

I assume square script starts in Elephantine in Egypt
about 495 B.C., develops into slightly later square
script in Qumran documents, but what then?  

At Qumran, so far, I think 50-60% of the letters
(depends on document) look modern to me (for the mss
which *are* in square script).  

But after Qumran, how long is the hiatus before we get
to 100% of the letters appearing modern?  In Birnbaum,
he seems to indicate it's another 600 years---I was
very surprised by that........

I also wondered if the Cairo Geniza had examples of
slightly later square script development?  

I'm drawing sample letters to re-use in a Web
document, so references with photo/drawn facsimiles
appreciated.

Thanks for all help--Elaine Keown

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