Meet Paleo‑Hebrew: the ancient script used to write early Hebrew before the familiar “square” letters of today.
Closely related to Phoenician, it was the alphabet of Israel and Judah from around the 10th to 6th centuries BCE.
It’s an abjad of 22 consonants, written right to left, with no vowel letters.
Its letter shapes are angular and early, like an X‑shaped aleph and a cross‑like taw.
The language it writes is Hebrew; “paleo” refers to the script style, not a different tongue.
We know it from famous inscriptions like the Gezer Calendar and the Siloam Inscription, and from ostraca at Lachish.
After the Babylonian exile, Hebrew shifted to the Aramaic, or square, script—but Paleo‑Hebrew survived on some coins and in the Samaritan tradition.
Same words, older letters—Paleo‑Hebrew shows us how Hebrew looked at its beginnings.