The McClelland Sherd, Tell Jisr Sherd or El-Jisr Sherd is a fragment of pottery

Pottery

Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

 discovered by McClelland at Tell Jisr

Tell Jisr

Tell Jisr, Tell el-Jisr or Tell ej-Jisr is a hill and archaeological site northwest of Joub Jannine in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon....

, near Rashaya

Rashaya

Rashaya , also known as Rashaya al-Wadi is a town in Lebanon, situated in the Rashaya District and south of the Beqaa Governorate. It is located on the slopes of Mount Hermon, south east of Beirut near the Syrian border, and approximately halfway between Jezzine and Damascus...

 in Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

 and first studied by George E. Mendenhall

George E. Mendenhall

George Emery Mendenhall is an author and Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s Department of Near Eastern Studies....

 in 1971.

The ostracon

Ostracon

An ostracon is a piece of pottery , usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In archaeology, ostraca may contain scratched-in words or other forms of writing which may give clues as to the time when the piece was in use...

 displays a series of incisions in the pottery that have been suggested to be an early type of Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

 writing

Writing

Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...

. The text has been compared to Byblian

Byblos

Byblos is the Greek name of the Phoenician city Gebal . It is a Mediterranean city in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of present-day Lebanon under the current Arabic name of Jubayl and was also referred to as Gibelet during the Crusades...

 pseudo-hieroglyphic, but also Minoan

Minoan

Minoan may refer to the following:*The Minoan civilization**The Eteocretan language**The script known as Linear A**Minoan pottery*Minoa, name of several bronze-age settlements in the Aegean....

 Linear A

Linear A

Linear A is one of two scripts used in ancient Crete before Mycenaean Greek Linear B; Cretan hieroglyphs is the second script. In Minoan times, before the Mycenaean Greek dominion, Linear A was the official script for the palaces and religious activities, and hieroglyphs were mainly used on seals....

 and Linear B

Linear B

Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization...

, Anatolian

Anatolian

Anatolian means of or pertaining to Anatolia, or a person from Anatolia, including:Geography*Anatolian:of or pertaining to the region Anatolia.Biology* Anatolian Black, a breed of cattle* Anatolian buffalo, a domestic animal of Anatolia...

, Canaanite and various other old languages. It is regarded as a rare trace of early written communication and important for further academic investigation. The pottery sherd shows a badly defined row of symbols in what some consider to be an abstract linear rather than pictographic form of character. It has not been reliably dated however suggestions have been made of c. 1800 BC or earlier. It has a double rope moulding that is similar to other Middle Bronze Age pottery from the Euphrates

Euphrates

The Euphrates is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia...

 valley area of Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

. Dr. Cherie J. Lenzen has also suggested similar features were noted on pottery found at Tell Irbid in northern Jordan

Jordan

Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...

. Despite calls for dismissal or denial of the sherd as a "by-form" of the alphabet by Frank M. Cross, Mendenhall confirms the sherd "clearly exhibits both the dâl and the thâ of later Eastern alphabets". He asserts "the sherd is perhaps older than any other alphabetic inscription so far discovered".