1904]: 634-45), follows Flinders Petrie in suggesting that the alphabet descends not from pictograms such as the Egyptian hieroglyphs but from a rather mysterious "signary" of geometric shapes supposedly widespread throughout the Mediterranean area and even, if we are to believe Lang, globally.

Meaningless colors are revealed to be a code, forms comprise asignary, patterns are resolved into a syntax: What was once nothing more than a colored surface becomes a picture, a notation, a text" (p.

Early Alphabet presents a great deal of up-to-date information in an extremely accessible form that ought to be well suited to both the layperson and the beginning student.(3) Healey takes well-informed positions on all the current issues: the syllabic interpretation of the West Semiticsignary is gently derided, the Fakhariyah inscription with its conservative letterforms is evidence for the later date of transmission of the alphabet to the Greeks, there may be Syriac input as well as Nabatean into the Arabic script.