Polygraphy (just in case you're wondering what a Classics PhD student does with her time)
I may have mentioned this before, but part of my work now involves transcribing Hebrew because some annoying academic dudes in the 60s decided it was cool to transcribe Phoenician inscriptions into Hebrew.
So, thanks to help from people, I was able to find a Hebrew sign table that gives the Phoenician equivalent of each letter[1]. Since I happened to have learnt the Phoenician alphabet a little while ago, this meant I was able to equate every Hebrew sign with its Phoenician equivalent and then work out the correct modern trasncription.
The upshot of this was that I ended up sitting in bed with a big sign table, a book with the Hebrew transcriptions and a pad of paper - and now I have some inscriptions transcribed in modern notation, which is very useful (and indeed might be for others - I don't know if people have made their own transcriptions, but no modern versions have been published AFAIK).
So, transcribing wasn't all of the job. I also needed a translation of each inscription - and in order to get it for the bilingual text, I had to sit with a dictionary translating a German translation of it, cross-referencing everything with a Phoenician dictionary[3] that's in English. Oh, and when I'm up to it, I face the same fun with my copied French translation of another massive inscription, except that I read French well enough to not need the dictionary.
[1] Letter is sort of the right term[2], because this is an alphabet. An alphabet without vowels, but still. They call it an abjad, and I think it's still right to call the signs of an abjad letters.
[2] If you wonder why I'm being fussy, it's because I work with syllabic scripts as well, and they have signs, not letters.
[3] This is called 'A Phoenician-Punic Dictionary' (Krahmalkov wrote it, if you're wondering!) - this just amuses me, because I can imagine Phoenician settlers from both sides of the Mediterranean having to use it to understand each other :) (the reality being that it gives English translations of both Phoenician and Punic words[4])
[4] Very brief history: The Phoenicians originate around the Syro-Levantine coast, but early on they travelled a lot and colonised all sorts of places. The eastern ones (e.g. Cyprus) are still known as Phoenician, but the ones in the west (Carthage, Spain, etc.) have been labelled Punic following the Latin name for them (Punic Wars, etc.). If you care, the Phoenician name for themselves was 'Ponnim'.
So, thanks to help from people, I was able to find a Hebrew sign table that gives the Phoenician equivalent of each letter[1]. Since I happened to have learnt the Phoenician alphabet a little while ago, this meant I was able to equate every Hebrew sign with its Phoenician equivalent and then work out the correct modern trasncription.
The upshot of this was that I ended up sitting in bed with a big sign table, a book with the Hebrew transcriptions and a pad of paper - and now I have some inscriptions transcribed in modern notation, which is very useful (and indeed might be for others - I don't know if people have made their own transcriptions, but no modern versions have been published AFAIK).
So, transcribing wasn't all of the job. I also needed a translation of each inscription - and in order to get it for the bilingual text, I had to sit with a dictionary translating a German translation of it, cross-referencing everything with a Phoenician dictionary[3] that's in English. Oh, and when I'm up to it, I face the same fun with my copied French translation of another massive inscription, except that I read French well enough to not need the dictionary.
[1] Letter is sort of the right term[2], because this is an alphabet. An alphabet without vowels, but still. They call it an abjad, and I think it's still right to call the signs of an abjad letters.
[2] If you wonder why I'm being fussy, it's because I work with syllabic scripts as well, and they have signs, not letters.
[3] This is called 'A Phoenician-Punic Dictionary' (Krahmalkov wrote it, if you're wondering!) - this just amuses me, because I can imagine Phoenician settlers from both sides of the Mediterranean having to use it to understand each other :) (the reality being that it gives English translations of both Phoenician and Punic words[4])
[4] Very brief history: The Phoenicians originate around the Syro-Levantine coast, but early on they travelled a lot and colonised all sorts of places. The eastern ones (e.g. Cyprus) are still known as Phoenician, but the ones in the west (Carthage, Spain, etc.) have been labelled Punic following the Latin name for them (Punic Wars, etc.). If you care, the Phoenician name for themselves was 'Ponnim'.