Talk:Cippi of Melqart

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This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

A fact from Cippi of Melqart appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 26 February 2014 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the texts on the Cippi of Melqart (pictured), known as the Maltese Rosetta stone, allowed the deciphering of the Phoenician alphabet in 1764?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2014/February. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Cippi of Melqart.

Wikipedia

Phoenician text

I have been trying to

1. make the said text readable across web browers (and fix some other perhaps secondary issues), i.e not reading question marks, boxes, or other symbols.
2. make it read at the proper direction.

Unfortunately I can't seem to accomplish both.
On my computer and using Firefox (v.27.0), there wasn't a need for using the copied code from the french wikipedia article in order to render the text properly. But User:Reuv, the magnificent contributor to this page, reported that despite long having had installed proper fonts (as per rendering support link), couldn't read the text. So I added the aforementioned code. He then was able to read it properly (to me it made no difference).
Moving on, trying today to solve said secondary issues with the text's format, I realised that on my pc the text(including the the one at the said french article) wasn't readable on IE (v.8; yes I know it's old) or Chrome (both the older version (didn't write down which one) and 32.0.1700.107 m that I've now just updated to).
I've managed to partially resolve this (and said secondary issues); that is, it is, at least on my computer, readable on IE; but still not on Chrome. The additional problem is that, at least on my computer, and either using the lang or the rtl-lang templates, IE renders the text to the opposite direction of what Firefox does.
Could editors report on how is the text presented from their perspective??? Try also, if possible to see whether older revision are readable and how they are rendered.
And if possible, point to its solution.
Thanx.
P.S. Btw: Changing from using rtl-lang to lang change nothing on what is read on my pc (on both Firefox and IE).
P.P.S. Btw: Using the bdo syntax, though on my computer unreadable on IE&Chrome, made-makes the rendering direction the same to the one of Firefox. I know this because of the placement of the lacuna-brackets.
P.P.P.S. I'm temporarily adding a note to the article warning that the rendered direction may differ on different browsers.
P.P.P.P.S. I'm examining the case of having installed "proper" rendering support. If you haven't...
Thanatos|talk|contributions 12:23, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Thanatos! Thanks for all the work you're doing on the language/phoenician characters parts! The order is now inverted here too (left to right). I'm on a Chrome 32.0.1700.107 m installation, with the ALPHABETUM Unicode', 'MPH 2B Damase', Aegean, Code2001, font package. I only noticed this because I compared the text with the image of the inscription in the article! Something is definitely bit fishy with the rendering. reuv ^T 12:37, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please check what the behaviour (including the french article) is on different browsers (and if possible computers)?? It may be a general bug that we may have to report or at least ask help on.Thanx.
Thanatos|talk|contributions 12:50, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to integrate your code, the version on the French wikipedia and some stuff from the Template: Unicode phoenician: What do you think? reuv ^T 13:02, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

𐤋𐤀𐤃𐤍𐤍𐤋𐤌𐤋𐤒𐤓𐤕𐤁𐤏𐤋𐤑𐤓𐤀𐤔𐤍𐤃𐤓

𐤏𐤁𐤃[𐤊]𐤏𐤁𐤃𐤀𐤔𐤓𐤅𐤀𐤇𐤉𐤀𐤎𐤓𐤔𐤌𐤓

𐤔𐤍𐤁𐤍𐤀𐤎𐤓𐤔𐤌𐤓𐤁𐤍𐤏𐤁𐤃𐤀𐤔𐤓𐤊𐤔𐤌𐤏‏

𐤒𐤋𐤌𐤉𐤁𐤓𐤊𐤌‏

I had already made many similar experiments with the code syntax stc; have lost again much much time... ;-)

Sorry, it's not a solution. On my computer, Firefox renders the above text properly. But both IE and Chrome don't. There are only squares... Apart from the lacuna-brackets (second line), that is, that have been placed to the same place as Firefox does, i.e. to the right (i.e. the rendering direction has changed, has matched Firefox).
P.S.Btw, the double statement of font-size:150% makes the text 225% larger... :) Thanatos|talk|contributions 13:13, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I must emphasize: Please, if and when possible, report back behaviour on different browsers. P.S. After all, it might well be a problem on only my side, my computer... Thanatos|talk|contributions 13:23, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I honestly don't know...will try and have a look with some other machine when I get the chance, and see whether there's any difference. On my computer the text I pasted above look in the correct order, and exactly like the image to the right. We'll have to wait and see from other machines...[Hahh, did not realise that! At 225% zoom they look better....was getting blind!! :) ] reuv ^T 13:35, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

PS. On my machine, both the above and your version in the article look the same on the latest version of Firefox. On Internet Explorer 11, the version in the article is wrong, and the version above is correct. reuv ^T 13:52, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So it has been confirmed that it's not only me. So the temporary note-warning may prove to be not so temporary after all... :)
But let's try to learn and resolve a little bit more, perhaps eliminate some possibilities (perhaps a wild goose chase, still...) :
We have the Chrome issue (same versions installed; on your machine it renders, here it doesn't); you say the text (article) is rendered there, albeit reversed. a.We have installed at minimum the same fonts; except perhaps the first ALPHABETUM Unicode; I have the demo font. Do you have the proper, full one, or the demo? b.Presently on a Win 7 PC. You? c.I've even just installed the Advanced font settings extension on Google Chrome and set manually Phoenician to use each of the aforementioned fonts; no change, squares. Have you done any change of any such, similar, setting?
P.S. Using the Web Developer tool that I've now installed on Chrome, simply displays unreadable characters inside the code element/section. The same inspection on Firefox shows them rendered properly.
Thanatos|talk|contributions 15:50, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(a) Maybe that's it! I'm not using the demo version. I'm using the version suggested by the Wikipedia Help article. If you go to Help:Special characters#Ancient_scripts, you will see a subsection for Windows users, and a link to download the Aegean font from an external website: (Aegean). Choose the Aegean.ttf font, download and install and it should load on your browser (after a while...I think I had to wait a bit until my machine decided to render the unicode-boxes as Punic script). Try that and see how it goes!

(b) Windows 8. (And not very pleased with it).

(c) No...did nothing of the sort. At first I thought maybe it was an encoding issue (so I played around with Tools - Encoding - and chose different versions, but then reverted to Unicode).

reuv ^T 16:16, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Aegean != ALPHABETUM Unicode... ;-) ALPHABETUM Unicode (full edition) seems to be proprietary and is not listed at the special characters help age. Thanatos|talk|contributions 16:56, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Went with Aegean, cause it's free and linked on the Help pages. Still haven't solved the issue though, on my machine the ordering is still wrong on the article page... but hey, at least we have a long thread on the Talk page discussing 2BC Phoenician fonts in 2014! It must be something...what should we do next? :) reuv ^T 18:47, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: We are not the first... :D Thanatos|talk|contributions 18:53, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

EDIT Just for the record: Second such example, here in the English Wikipedia. Thanatos|talk|contributions 21:43, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I give up. Everything I've tried seems to verify my initial observation:
I can't fix across browsers both the rendering in general and the rendered direction-ality.
Therefore since a.no other editor has commented reporting behaviour, b.you've said that on your computer the latest version of Chrome and IE, unlike on mine(I will regard my case as the exception; until, that is, we have new comments by other editors) render the article code/text but to the opposite direction of mine, c.global browser statistics I've checked show Chrome+IE to have the lion's share of the pie and d.downloading opera shows (on my pc at least) no rendering but same (now; older revisions vary) directionality (based on brackets) to the one reported by you :
I've left the coding as it was the last time you replied but having reversed the order of the characters. Now the rendering works across as many browsers as I can tell/guess/assume; it's just the directionality that varies/differs. So, the warning note will have to remain present.
Please check and report back. Thanx. Thanatos|talk|contributions 21:15, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

First identification of "Phoenician"

Hi @Zugraga: thanks for this fantastic article. Five years ago I added the following text to the lede: "the identification of their inscription in a letter dated 1694 made them the first Phoenician writing to be identified and published in modern times" in this edit with a clear quotation.

Today I have found a contradiction of this, from a book published one hundred years before (see image). Have you any idea how Phoenician script could have been known a century before the Cippi was found?

Onceinawhile (talk) 22:40, 15 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Onceinawhile: Ah, I see, good point. Look again into Lehmann's 2013 article, there you find a hint referring to Guillaume Postel which Scaliger used. Does that help? If you look at the script, it may resemble Phoenician but actually it is not. And further you should read the text by Scaliger, it gives you some hints as well about the φοινικεια γραµµατα of the ancients. --Qumranhöhle (talk) 19:43, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Qumranhöhle, thank you. I emailed Lehmann this question a week ago, but sadly no response. I also looked into Postel’s works back then, but could find no reference to Phoenician. And as you say, the writing above is mostly Samaritan, and quite similar to this chart of Postel which I added to commons in 2015. From what I have been able to glean from reading around this, is that there was a general acceptance amongst scholars of the time that Phoenician was the first written script, and that it was closely related to Hebrew and Samaritan. Apparently this was based on Jerome and Josephus. On that basis, Scaliger may simply have said “I conclude that this is the oldest script ever used, so it must be the same as Phoenician”. I would like to source all of this and nail it down, as I think it will help explain the background to today’s often confusing terminology. 23:00, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

The Greeks "knew" (see, i.a., Herodotus) that Kadmos brought them the Phoenician letters, i.e. the script, thus the conclusion was at hand that Phoenician is the oldest script. And for Scaliger's reasoning - he gives a long explanation, just read further on the next page(s). (Scaliger is also aware that the Jewish square script is called אשורית in the Jewish tradition and that this is younger than the old "Hebrew" script etc.) In any case it should be clear that he knew no original Phoenician inscription, thus the claim made in the article is still correct. Isn't it? --Qumranhöhle (talk) 10:52, 22 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Qumranhöhle, you may be interested in the article I started a few weeks ago at Carpentras Stela. It has a similar relevance to the question of the right names for the Ancient Semitic inscriptions. It was first described as Phoenician (at around the same time the Cippi of Melqart inscriptions were published), then 100 years later a couple of scholars came along and claimed that the Carpentras inscription had some similarity to Biblical Aramaic, and argued for its relabelling to "Aramaic". It became the first inscription to be labelled Aramaic. I managed to find the original references, and have put the quotations in the footnotes. Onceinawhile (talk) 21:08, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot, nice job! The early research history of these inscription is quite a valuable contribution. --Qumranhöhle (talk) 21:45, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Moved below from bibliography, as not relevant to the topic of the article (all published prior to the discovery)

Abela, Gian Franġisk (1647). Della Descrittione di Malta. Malta. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Axiaq, M.A. (1610). Relazione della nuova e grandissima devotione introdotta nella S. Grotta di S. Paolo nell'Isola di Malta. Malta. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Bosio, Giacomo (1684) [First published in 1621-1629, in Rome]. Historia della Sacra Religione et Illustrissima Militia di San Giovanni Gierosolimitano, di nuovo ristampata e dal medesimo autore ampliata et illustrata (2nd ed.). Naples. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Onceinawhile (talk) 07:34, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]