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Canaanite Comb – The Oldest Known Full Alphabetic Sentence
In 2016, excavations at Tel Lachish in Israel uncovered a tiny ivory comb that turned out to carry the oldest known complete sentence written in an alphabet. Dating to around the 17th century BCE, the comb is made from elephant ivory and measures only a few centimeters, yet on its surface are 17 minuscule Canaanite letters forming a seven‑word inscription.
The text is wonderfully down‑to‑earth: “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.” Microscopic analysis of the original even found the remains of head‑lice on the comb, confirming that this was a real used object, not a ritual piece, and that the inscription expresses a very practical wish shared across millennia.
This ArQreation 3D model recreates the fragile ivory comb in high detail, including the broken teeth, surface scratches and the shallow, pictographic Canaanite letters that vary from about 1 to 3 millimeters in size. The model is optimized for 3D printing and digital visualization, allowing students and enthusiasts to study the inscription’s layout, letter shapes and object geometry at a scale far larger than the original.
Because the comb is the first Canaanite inscription found on a carbon‑dateable object, it has become a landmark for the early history of the alphabet and everyday literacy in the Bronze Age Levant. As a tactile teaching tool or display piece, the 3D reconstruction brings together epigraphy, daily life (and lice!) and the origins of alphabetic writing in a single small, memorable artifact
“May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.”
𐤉𐤕𐤔 𐤇𐤈𐤃 𐤋𐤒𐤌 𐤋 𐤔𐤏[𐤓𐤅]𐤆𐤒𐤕
YTʃ ḤṬ Ḏ LQML ŚʿR WZQT
