Puzzling McClelland Sherd – Undeciphered Inscription Could Be Early Bronze Age Writing

Ellen Lloyd - AncientPages.com - Are the incisions discovered on the puzzling McClelland Sherd only decorative symbols, an early Bronze Age writing or perhaps the oldest alphabetic writing ever discovered?

Have researchers neglected or overlooked a significant ancient artifact that could re-write our Bronze Age history?

The McClelland sherd is a piece of ancient pottery unearthed at Tell Jisr, an archaeological site in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon.

View across the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon. Credit: Public Domain

At first sight the artifact may appear to be nothing extraordinary, just a piece of ancient pottery. However, there are scientists who suggest the McClelland sherd, also known as Tell Jisr sherd or El-Jisr sherd offers evidence of early type of Bronze Age writing.

According to George E. Mendenhall at the University of Michigan and Yarmouk University, it’s possible that the sherd is older than any other alphabetic inscription so far discovered.

The problem is that the artifact has never been properly examined and properly dated. Some scholars suggest it was made around 1800 B.C. or earlier. On the McLellan sherd there is a badly defined row of symbols in what some consider to be an abstract linear rather than pictographic form of character.

The inscription remains undeciphered, but Mendenhall remarks that it clearly exhibits both the dâl and the thâ of later Eastern alphabets. If the ceramic evidence is reliable, the sherd is perhaps older than any other alphabetic inscription so far discovered.

See also:

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A similar Bronze Age inscription dated to 1,400 B.C. was discovered at Kamid el-Loz, just a few kilometers upstream from Tell Jisr. Mendehall states that both inscriptions are connected with the Eastern alphabets, something scholars have dismissed. He also points out it is wrong to call the artifact a "fake" because its letter forms do not conform to the orthodox theory.

“The prevailing theory simply dismisses the evidence that other corpora existed in the Bronze Age, and that each cultural area had its own alphabetic heritage, so to speak,” Mendenhall said.

Scholars have compared the series of incisions in the pottery to Byblian pseudo-hieroglyphic, as well as  Minoan Linear A and Linear B, Anatolian, Canaanite and various other old languages.

Many think the McLelland sherd offers evidence of early written communication and it is an important artifact that should be examined further so that scholars are guilty of overlooking significant data.

Many artifacts have been discovered at Tell Jisr. Heavy flint tools, including trapezoidal axes, choppers, a variety of scrapers may have been used for deforestation. A large number of pottery have also been unearthed at the site. Archaeologists have come across decorated jars, basal bowls and vessels of various size. All these objects suggest a Neolithic settlement, similar to Byblos may have existed in the region.

Written by Ellen Lloyd – AncientPages.com

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