Archaeologists in Israel say they’ve discovered the first-known written sentence in Canaanite, an alphabet utilized by the long-ago inhabitants of the area and till now misplaced to time.

The sentence—comprising 17 Canaanite characters, totaling seven phrases—was incised on an ivory comb carved from an elephant tusk. It says: “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.”

The comb was discovered on the location of Tel Lachish, a Bronze Age settlement about 25 miles from Jerusalem. It’s about 1.38 inches by 0.98 inches, although its tooth have lengthy since damaged off. Details of the script’s characters and which means had been published at present within the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology.

“This is the first sentence ever found in the Canaanite language in Israel,” stated Yosef Garfinkel, an archaeologist on the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a co-author of the examine, in a college release. “There are Canaanites in Ugarit in Syria, but they write in a different script, not the alphabet that is used till today.”

In an electronic mail to Gizmodo, Garfinkel added that the comb was seemingly made in Egypt after which delivered to Tel Lachish, the place a neighborhood inscribed the delousing plea.

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According to Garfinkel’s staff, the comb’s markings are the primary total sentence written within the Canaanite language, one of many first identified alphabets. (The Sumerians and Egyptians had even older scripts.)

Now an Israel Nature and Parks Authority website, Tel Lachish was a vigorous metropolis middle for about 600 years, from 1800 BCE to 1150 BCE. The comb was found throughout 2017 excavations, however the lettering was solely seen this yr.

Like many fashionable lice combs, the Levantine comb had tooth on each side. One set of tooth was thicker, to untangle and type out bigger bunches of hair. The different set was a lot finer, more likely to pull lice and their eggs out of the hair.

Happily for the comb’s proprietor, the software was doing its job. Under a microscope, researchers discovered the stays of head lice on the software’s second tooth. If you didn’t really feel near the previous seeing historical Canaanite writing, maybe the chitinous membrane of a Bronze Age louse will push you over the road.

Canaanite inscriptions, however not full sentences, have been discovered earlier than. At Tel Lachish, archaeologists have discovered 10 inscriptions thus far (together with the comb), greater than another website in Israel.

Time will inform what different historical writing is ready to be discovered. Perhaps there’s a Canaanite equal of the old Sumerian bar joke—ideally with the punchline intact.

More: 3-Foot-Long Sword Discovered Off Israel’s Coast Dates Back to the Crusades