Phoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad (consonantal alphabet) used across the Mediterranean civilization of Phoenicia for most of the 1st millennium BC. It was one of the first alphabets, attested in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean basin. In the history of writing systems, the Phoenician script also marked the first to have a fixed writing direction—while previous systems were multi-directional, Phoenician was written horizontally, from right to left. It developed directly from the Proto-Sinaitic script used during the Late Bronze Age, which was derived in turn from Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Extends: [Phoenician alphabet](https://wikipedia.org.ai/Phoenician alphabet), [11th-century BC establishments](https://wikipedia.org.ai/11th-century BC establishments), Typography, [Abjad writing systems](https://wikipedia.org.ai/Abjad writing systems), [Memory of the World Register](https://wikipedia.org.ai/Memory of the World Register)
Properties
| Property | Expected Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Text | Phoenician script |
| Direction | Text | right-to-left |
| Languages | Text | Phoenician, Punic, Old Aramaic, Ammonite, Moabite, Edomite, Old Arabic |
| Time | Text | c. 1050–150 BC |
| Fam1 | Text | Egyptian hieroglyphs |
| Fam2 | Text | Proto-Sinaitic |
| Children | Text | Aramaic, Greek, Paleo-Hebrew, Paleohispanic, Libyco-Berber |
| Sisters | Text | South Semitic |
| Unicode | Text | U+10900–U+1091F |
| Iso15924 | Text | Phnx |
| Sample | Text | Phoenician Alphabet.svg |
| Caption | Text | The twenty-two letters of the Phoenician alphabet |