Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet

Barry B Powell author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:28th Oct '96

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet cover

A challenging and fascinating enquiry into the genesis of alphabetic writing.

Who invented the Greek alphabet and why? The purpose of this challenging book is to inquire systematically into the historical causes that underlay the radical shift from earlier and less efficient writing systems to the use of alphabetic writing. The author reaches the conclusion that a single man, perhaps from the island of Euboea, invented the Greek alphabet specifically in order to record the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer.

' … this is a book which is as remarkable for the ingenuity of its answers to difficult questions as it is for its useful review and compelling display of so much of the relevant evidence.' Bryn Mawr Classical Review
'[This] is an important book, and will be widely read by students of writing in other cultures as well as by Homerists, linguists, historians and archaeologists of early Greece.' Classical Philology

ISBN: 9780521589079

Dimensions: 353mm x 98mm x 20mm

Weight: 460g

308 pages