Middle Eastern alphabets. 19th-century tables showing the scripts and alphabets used in Hebrew, Samaritan (Hebrew and Aramaic), Phoenician (Proto-Canaanite, coin numbers), Syriac (a dialect of Middle Aramaic), Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Chinese characters. Apart from Chinese, these alphabets and scripts were all used in the Ancient Near and Middle East. Coins are shown across bottom. The four tables at left also show ancient and modern versions of the scripts, the names of the letters, and the phonetic equivalents in the Roman alphabet. This page is from 'Universal Technological Dictionary' (1823) by British author George Crabb (1778-1851).