Historical Timeline of Sinai Part 7

Middle Bronze Age: Middle Bronze Age: 2,200 BC – 2,000 BC

Many MB 1 settlements were found in the Negev highlands in southern Canaan and traces of such settlements have also been found in northern Sinai. It is suggested that MB 1 settlers came out of Sinai and migrated to Canaan.


Late Bronze Age: 1,550 BC – 1,200 BC

It was during the extensive mining activities of the Egyptians in Sinai that the so-called Proto Sinaitic script was invented. These inscriptions, discovered by E.H. Palmer in 1869, are written in an alphabetic script-invented under hieroglyphic influence. The script represents the earliest form of the Semitic alphabet, from which all modern alphabets are derived.

Egyptian or Asiatic workers of the mines attached to the Egyptian mining expedition as free men undoubtedly wrote the inscriptions. This alphabet, although very closely related to Egyptian hieroglyphs, was nevertheless a departure from the complicated system, the Egyptian Court used in writing its language. This was probably the script of the normal person. In and around Serabit el Khadem, discoveries were made useful in dating these inscriptions to the late 16th and early15th centuries BC, although recent discoveries of the same script in Egypt’s Eastern Desert have been dated to the 18th century BC.

Many MB 1 settlements were found in the Negev highlands in southern Canaan and traces of such settlements have also been found in northern Sinai. It is suggested that MB 1 settlers came out of Sinai and migrated to Canaan.


Late Bronze Age: 1,550 BC – 1,200 BC

It was during the extensive mining activities of the Egyptians in Sinai that the so-called Proto Sinaitic script was invented. These inscriptions, discovered by E.H. Palmer in 1869, are written in an alphabetic script-invented under hieroglyphic influence. The script represents the earliest form of the Semitic alphabet, from which all modern alphabets are derived.

Egyptian or Asiatic workers of the mines attached to the Egyptian mining expedition as free men undoubtedly wrote the inscriptions. This alphabet, although very closely related to Egyptian hieroglyphs, was nevertheless a departure from the complicated system, the Egyptian Court used in writing its language. This was probably the script of the normal person. In and around Serabit el Khadem, discoveries were made useful in dating these inscriptions to the late 16th and early15th centuries BC, although recent discoveries of the same script in Egypt’s Eastern Desert have been dated to the 18th century BC.