Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions

Semitic inscriptions may occur on stone slabs, pottery ostraca, ornaments, and range from simple names to full texts.

The old Aramaic period (850 to 612 BC) saw the production and dispersal of inscriptions due to the rise of the Arameans as a major force in Ancient Near East.

"[16] The only other substantial source for Phoenician-Punic are the excerpts in Poenulus, a play written by the Roman writer Plautus (see Punic language § Example for an analysis).

[1][2] Fewer than 2,000 inscriptions in Ancient Hebrew, another Canaanite language, are known, of which the vast majority comprise just a single letter or word.

[22][23] The inscriptions written in ancient Northwest Semitic script (Canaanite and Aramaic) have been catalogued into multiple corpora (i.e., lists) over the last two centuries.

The Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II was the first of this type of inscription found anywhere in the Levant (modern Jordan , Israel , Lebanon , Palestine and Syria ). [ 1 ] [ 2 ]