This page is part of the course material for "History of the alphabets" taught by Prof. Robert Fradkin at University of Maryland.

• The evolution of the Phoenician character set from the Proto-Sinaitic glyphs.
  
• The evolution of the Greek character set from the Phoenician character set.
  
• Evolution of  Square Aramaic/Hebrew character set from  Phoenician set.
  
• The Phoenician characters which in Greek rotated 90 degrees
  
• The evolution of the Latin character set.
  

    A stone in a dry creek bed in New Mexico, discovered by early settlers in the region, is one of the most amazing archaeological discoveries in the Western Hemisphere.  It contains engraved on its flank the entire Ten Commandments written in ancient Hebrew script!

Evidence of ancient explorers traveling to the new world does exist, and more than a single anomaly.

Phoenician Sea and Land Voyages and Routes
When the power of Carthage flourished, Hanno sailed round from Cadiz to the extremity of Arabia, and published a memoir of his voyage of his voyage, as did Himilco when he was dispatched at the same date to explore the outer coasts of Europe.

Los Lunas Stone in New Mexico
At the foot of a "Mystery Mountain" there is an inscription written in paleo-Hebrew. The inscription contains a slightly abridged version of the Decalogue or Ten Commandments.

The Bat Creek Stone
In 1971, Cyrus Gordon identified the letters inscribed on the stone as Paleo-Hebrew of approximately the first or second century A.D. According to him, the five letters to the left of the comma-shaped word divider read, from right to left, LYHWD, or "for Judea."

The Grave Creek Stone
The Grave Creek Stone was discovered in 1838 during the excavation of the Grave Creek Mound, in Moundsville, West Virginia, on the Ohio River.

If Mark McMenamin is correct, neither Columbus nor the Vikings were the first non-natives to set foot on the Americas.  Working with computer-enhanced images of gold coins,  is map of the ancient world, including the area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea and the land mass representing the Americas.

The Newark, Ohio Decalogue and Keystone Stones
In November of 1860, David Wyrick of Newark, Ohio found an inscribed stone in a burial mound about 10 miles south of Newark. The stone is inscribed on all sides with a condensed version of the Ten Commandments or Decalogue, in a peculiar form of post-Exilic square Hebrew letters.

America's Mysterious Furnaces
Scientific evidence of prehistoric Indian copper casting was published in an article in North American Archaeologist, written by an Evanston, IL dentist, Ellis J. Neiburger, a man who became interested in metallurgy while in dental school. This paper offers xeroradiographic proof of ancient casting.
Based on the work of William D. Conner

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