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Ed Metzler
forming a four-letter group or quaternity.17) The sixteen letters above
the Tet-Yod-Shin-Taw qua- ternity are
arranged in four square blocks of
four letters each with the second line
of every block in the opposite
writing direction (bou- strophedon).18) It brings out
the He-Chet type of similarity by
placing these letters above each other in
the same four-letter group. The
two empty spaces at the end are
filled by Alef-Bet to read: Kol
Alef-Bet – all of the alphabet.19)
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17) See the didactic plate of the
Hebrew alphabet, which is a recurring theme in
recent works of art by Yitzhak
Greenfield: On it the second half of
the alphabet begins with Mem. Likewise
the second line of a
cuneiform alphabet-tablet found in Ugarit already
began with the letter Mem.
18) On account of the oldest
Greek and proto-Sinaitic inscriptions a
boustrophedon pattern
could be expected, and was
subsequently confirmed (cf. Note 24 infra).
19) The above three typical
similarities of the letters 13./14.
Mem-Nun, 5./8. He-Chet, and
9./22. Tet-Taw (bold-faced) are
sufficient to determine the
two-dimensional structure of the
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alphabetical order, which
is graphically illustrated by
the adjoining diagram. Its numbers
are the ordinal numbers
of the letters in the
alphabetical order of the ancient
Hebrew alphabet. This
diagram also determines the outlines
of the graphic designs of the
Solomonic alphabet, and of
the original Mosaical alphabet (see below pp.30 and31), reprinted from TORAH OF THE
ALPHABET (N.1)
pp. 24 and 30.
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