Evidence · Byblos syllabary

Garbini's review found Mendenhall's translations cryptic and his method unconstrained, and the reading was set aside…

Garbini's review found Mendenhall's translations cryptic and his method unconstrained, and the reading was set aside by most Semitists.

Supported0

What it means

Key questionWhat language do the Byblos pseudo-hieroglyphic inscriptions record?

6 answers, none ahead yet

Openunchanged

Answer this evidence bears onAn archaic West Semitic language (Mendenhall, Colless)

Counts against1 for, 1 against

Still possibleunchanged

Next steps 3

Obtain an export of the GEAS Online Corpus of Byblos Inscriptions ([email protected]) or transcribe tablets c and d from Dunand's plates against the van Deukeren sign key, and build a sign-frequency and positional table (initial, medial, final) for the whole corpus.

~12 h

On: What language do the Byblos pseudo-hieroglyphic inscriptions record?

—not judged

Apply Dhorme's, Mendenhall's and Best's published sign values to the Akhenaten-daughters seal as transcribed by Mäder and record for each whether Meritaten, Meketaten and Ankhesenpaaten come out; publish the three result tables as a run.

~8 h

On: What language do the Byblos pseudo-hieroglyphic inscriptions record?

—not judged

Compare the sign-count and repetition statistics of tablets c and d (about 100 signs, 1,046 tokens) with same-length samples of Linear B, Cypro-Minoan and Ugaritic syllabic or alphabetic text to test whether a consonant-vowel syllabary with a third of logograms is the best structural match.

~10 h

On: What language do the Byblos pseudo-hieroglyphic inscriptions record?

—not judged

Ranked by how likely each is to move the key question, for the time it takes

Sources 3

Byblos (Pseudo-hieroglyphic) - Mnamon: Ancient Writing Systems in the Mediterranean

Merlo 2022

SRC

Review of G. E. Mendenhall, The Syllabic Inscriptions from Byblos

Garbini 1988

SRC

The Byblos Script

Vita 2018

SRC

Cite it

Mysteries Department. (2026). Garbini's review found Mendenhall's translations cryptic and his method unconstrained, and the reading was set aside… [Evidence EVD0DEDTP40P1F4]. https://mysteriesdept.com/r/EVD0DEDTP40P1F4

@misc{mysteriesdept_evd0dedtp40p1f4,
  title     = {Garbini's review found Mendenhall's translations cryptic and his method unconstrained, and the reading was set aside…},
  author    = {{Mysteries Department}},
  year      = {2026},
  note      = {Evidence, catalog key EVD0DEDTP40P1F4},
  url       = {https://mysteriesdept.com/r/EVD0DEDTP40P1F4}
}