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ALPHABETA
from the exhibition Roots in Tunbridge Wells
An Illustration of the History of the Alphabet
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Alphabeta
This image is inspired by the study of Classical Greek that was part of my Open University Diploma in Classical Studies. During one of the courses there was some information in the Resources folder about the roots of the letters of the Greek alphabet. This led me to do some further reading.
The Phoenicians from the land of the rising sun (the Levant, part of the Fertile Crescent) sailed the Mediterranean. They traded papyrus and a purple dye, which comes from a sea mollusc called murex. This dye was often used to dye the robes of priests and kings, and was sometimes called Tyrian purple. Through this trade, the ancient Greeks became familiar with the Phoenician alphabet and adapted it for their own language, changing the direction of many letters, and adding vowels.
The Latin alphabet which we use today, evolved from the Greek letters and many other
Indo-European alphabets have roots in the Phoenician alphabet
The Greek statue is a photo of one of my apparel designs on a dressmaker’s dummy,
which I edited with photo editing software so that it looks like an old statue (well,
a bit like bas-relief). I created the letters with drawing software and the rest
of the image was also created digitally.
References:
The Open University (2003) A396 Continuing Classical Greek, Milton Keynes, The Open University
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple
The above Wikipedia articles are licensed for release under the Creative Commons
Attribution-
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
This license applies to the text from Wikipedia only and not to my image
GICLÉE PRINTS
Open edition prints are available of this picture. To purchase an A3 image @ £75 visit the Digital Collection page where the image can be added to the shopping cart.
Please see Stock Prints and Note Cards & Prints for how to place orders for prints and cards.
