Abda sherd explained

Material:	Clay
Created:	900 BC
Discovered Date:	before 1933
Discovered By:	Maurice Dunand
Discovered Place:	Byblos, Keserwan-Jbeil, Lebanon

The Abda sherd graffito is a Phoenician inscription (KAI 8 and TSSI III 10) on a two small connecting fragment of a large vase, dating to .^[1]

It was published in Maurice Dunand's Fouilles de Byblos (volume II, 1926–1932, numbers 9008, plate CXLIV). It was described by Dunand as the second milestone in the history of the alphabet between the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and the reign of the King of Byblos Ahiram.^[2]

Text of the inscription

The inscription, apparently a property mark on a vase, reads:^[3]

[L]‘BD’ BKLBY HY[ṢR]

[''Belonging to''] Abda, son of Kelbē, the po[''tter'']

Bibliography

• Christopher Rollston, "The Dating of the Early Royal Byblian Phoenician Inscriptions: A Response to Benjamin Sass." MAARAV 15 (2008): 57–93.
• Benjamin Mazar, The Phoenician Inscriptions from Byblos and the Evolution of the Phoenician-Hebrew Alphabet, in The Early Biblical Period: Historical Studies (S. Ahituv and B. A. Levine, eds., Jerusalem: IES, 1986 [original publication: 1946]): 231–247.
• William F. Albright, The Phoenician Inscriptions of the Tenth Century B.C. from Byblus, JAOS 67 (1947): 153–154.

Notes and References

1. Book: Cross, Frank Moore. Leaves from an Epigrapher's Notebook: Collected Papers in Hebrew and West Semitic Palaeography and Epigraphy. August 14, 2018. BRILL. 9789004369887 . Google Books.
2. Book: Dunand, Maurice . Byblia grammata: documents et recherches sur le développement de l'écriture en Phénicie . na . Ministère de l'éducation, Liban. Êtudes et documents d'archéologie . 1945 . 152–155 . fr . none. Le tesson inscrit reproduit a la pl. XV, a, constitue le deuxiéme jalon dans l'histoire dw l`alphabet entre le Moyen Empire et le règne du roi Akhiram… Ce sont deux fragments qui se raccordent de l'embouchure cylindrique et à parios verticales d'un trés grand vase (p. 152)..
3. Book: Donner . Herbert . Rölig . Wolfgang . Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften . 2002 . Harrassowitz . Wiesbaden . I, 2 . 5.