“May this comb eradicate lice from hair and beard.” A simple lice prayer is the oldest sentence ever written in the oldest alphabet in the world – Proto-Sinaitic or Proto-Canaanite. According to the study published in the Jerusalem Journal of Archeology, the engraving includes 17 letters forming 7 words and appears on a luxury item, a double-edged ivory comb found at the archaeological site of Lachish, the second Canaanite city-state of the second millennium BC more important than the kingdom of Judah.
“The inscription is very human,” said Professor Yosef Garfinkel, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who helped direct the excavation. “There is a comb and on the comb there is a desire to destroy the lice on the hair and beard. Today we have all these sprays, modern medicines and poisons. They weren’t there in the past ». A concern that touched both the poor and the rich, given the material the comb is made of.
The find, which measures 3.5 cm by 2.5 cm, was discovered in 2017, but the incisions were only identified in December last year. The analysis of the signs has confirmed that it is Proto-Canaanite writing, the first alphabet invented about 3,800 years ago, although researchers believe that the object was made around 1700 BC.
Drawing of the inscription, taken from the Jerusalem Journal of Archeology
As for its condition, the comb is worn and has lost its teeth, but the remaining stumps show that it once had six teeth spaced apart to remove tangles of hair, while on the other there were 14 teeth to remove lice and eggs. Further evidence of the purpose for which it was used came when researchers examined it under a microscope and identified the outer membranes of the lice nymph stages, half a millimeter long.
Remains of a louse nymph between the teeth of the Lachish comb, from the Jerusalem Journal of Archeology
“The fact that this inscription is about ordinary life is particularly fascinating,” he told al Guardian Christopher Rollston, professor of Northwest Semitic languages at George Washington University in the United States. “Lice have been a perennial problem throughout human history. And this inscription reveals well that even the rich and famous in ancient times were not exempt from these problems. We can only hope that this engraved comb has been useful in doing what it says it has to do: eradicating some of these annoying insects. ‘