The Phoenician Alphabet (2022)

The Phoenician Alphabet (2022)
Nayla Romanos Iliya (art), Rose Issa, Susan Babaie and Peter Murray (text)
Casebound laminated cover. H205 x W185 mm. 108 pages. Acquired from Les presses du réel, 2 February 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Herodotus first put forward the historical account that Cadmos, a prince from Byblos in today’s Lebanon, brought the Phoenician alphabet to the Greeks in ancient times (anywhere from the 12th to 8th century BCE according to scholars of the 20th and 21st centuries CE). The myth and story of Cadmos — his pursuit of his sister Europa kidnapped by Zeus, his founding the city of Thebes and his delivering the alphabet — are entertainingly recounted in the children’s book There’s a Monster in the Alphabet (2002) by James Rumford. The relative settling on the Semitic origins of Cadmos and the Phoenician alphabet is well covered in Johanna Drucker’s Inventing the Alphabet (2022).

Lebanon’s being the ancient source of this civilizing invention and the site today of ever-present conflict and ever-elusive peace is a challenging irony. Architect and artist Romanos Iliya meets that challenge with works like “On the Other Side of Time” (a soaring public sculpture in Beirut), Flower Power (forms made of concrete, steel and shell casings and splinters), 1001 Lights (an interactive sculpture of light, cubes and Arabic calligraphy) and the Phoenician Alphabet (public sculptures inspired by those shapes that Cadmos brought to capture the sounds of language). The monograph displays these works and more, including the limited edition series called Small Characters that she made for the National Museum of Beirut and the AUB Archaeology Museum.

Small Characters (2014) displayed in The Phoenician Alphabet.

Just as Ron King’s ABC Paperweights have done for the Latin alphabet, Romanos Iliya’s Phoenician letters suggest rather than replicate.

ABC Paperweights [nd]
Ron King
Resin sculptures on painted wooden board Acquired from the artist, 24 July 2021.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Alef, Beth and Gimel from the series Small Characters (2014)
Nayla Romanos Iliya
Sculptures in resin. 130 x 130 mm, variable height.Edition of 100 each, of which these are #26, #16 and #25, respectively. Acquired from the artist, 13 October 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

These three letters from the Small Characters series arrived too late to be included in the exhibition Alphabets Alive! at the Bodleian in Oxford. Had they arrived in time, however, they might have thrown the exhibition off track. The Alphabets Alive! exhibition began with a focus on artists’ books and the alphabet. A few non-print and non-book works slipped into the cabinets. But so resonant and evocative are these representations of the Phoenician alphabet that they would have — and have — led to a search for other sculptural works. Imagine the completely different and monumental display needed to accommodate these 26 artists alongside Romanos Iliya and King. Enjoy the links.

Hazem el Mestikawy

Dominault Evelyne

Emily Floyd

Glagolitic Alphabet Trail

Thierry Gouttenègre

Ebon Heath

Eric Ho & Kostika Spaho

Takanobu Igarashi