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Alphabetical Order
103
how to arrange its twenty-two
letters on a two-
dimensional writing area,
such as a sheet of paper,
a
blackboard or a slate tablet.13) Recognizing
the
same
practical problem almost three
and a half
thousand years
later may also lead to the
same
solution. The best solution
is a tablet of 6 by 4
with
two empty spaces, for an area
of 11 by 2
is too oblong,
while a square of 5
letter-units
has three empty spaces.14) Like a string of
pearls
the one-dimensional
alphabetical order must be
laid
out or coiled up in a two-dimensional
pattern
in such a way as
to bring out the similarities
of
remote letters by
their nearness on the tablet.
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13) Such an ancient Etruscan
school-tablet, dated around 700 B. C.
E., was found in
Marsiliana, Italy. All 22 letters of
the
ancient Hebrew
alphabet are inscribed
in alphabetical order
in
one line on its
frame plus four additional
letters at the end. The
shapes
of most letters are still
very close to their Hebrew
original,
and may
rightly be called
"Punic" (Latin for "Phoenician"),
as
Herodotus writes with
respect to the most
ancient Greek letters,
see above
Note 4. In
this context we should remember the
story
told by
Virgil (cf. Aeneid I,
5–7) about a man
named Aeneas
(Hebrew
Aenosh "man"), coming
over from the
Hebrew-speaking
Tyrian colony of
Carthage to found a
city on Capitol Hill,
that
was to be
called "Roma" (Hebrew
Romah "proud elevation").
14) The Tablets of the
Law of the Torah of Moses
from
the Sinai (below p.
26) turned out to have
the same proportions
(6 : 4
= 3 : 2 = 1.5 :
1) as my didactic table (cf. Note19 infra).
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