As Easy as ABC?: A Review of Thomas Schneider’s Study of the TT99 OstraconThis discussion is outside my expertise and I take no position on who, if anyone, is right. The main takeaway for me is that this inscription is so difficult that experts can propose that one side contains two rather different alphabetic sequences of words.
Schneider’s work advances the discussion of the TT99 ostracon in several important ways. His suggestion that the entries on the ostracon formed a mnemonic verse that could contain grammatical elements is both persuasive and helpful. But, at the same time, his claim that the back of the ostracon lists Semitic words arranged according to the abgad alphabetic sequence suffers from several problems.
By Aren M. Wilson-Wright
Postdoctoral Researcher
University of Zurich
October 2018
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