Researchers have discovered and translated an ancient ivory comb that contains what appears to be the oldest known sentence in the Canaanite alphabet.
It is the language of people who lived in what is now Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. It is also a language that gave rise to modern language systems like Arabic and Hebrew.
The ancient comb was made around 1700BCE and it was inscribed, May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard! According to the research team, it is a beard lice eradication spell.
The comb is basically telling the people to comb their hair and beards to get rid of lice and after Israeli archaeologists found it at Tel Lachish in Israel, it seems the hair-related issues were present since the bronze age.
Professor Yosef Garfinkel, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said: ‘This is the first sentence ever found in the Canaanite language in Israel. This is a landmark in the history of the human ability to write.’
Prof Garfinkel further said, ‘The inscription is very human. You have a comb and on the comb you have a wish to destroy lice on the hair and beard. Nowadays we have all these sprays and modern medicines and poisons. In the past they didn’t have those.’
Notably, the comb was discovered at the site in south-central Israel in 2017. The inscriptions were discovered in December of last year by a team researcher and deciphered by Semitic epigraphist Dr Daniel Vainstub.
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