Paul D. LeBlanc, Deciphering the Proto-Sinaitic Script

Since the very earliest times, we humans have dreamed of overcoming the limits imposed by our bodies, and of using technology to surpass the intellectual, physical or psychological boundaries of our existence. The development of writing in the ancient world is usually ranked as one of the most important of human cultural achievements, as significant as the domestication of fire, the invention of agriculture, and even the development of the wheel. With the invention of the alphabet, writing technology has given us a means to record our words and therefore allows our thoughts to outlive us; the dead can speak to the living. The use of the alphabet permits us to build on the knowledge of others, over generations. It is at the  core  of our civilization — and some would go so far as to say it is at the essence of our  humanness . The technology of writing, it could be said, is a sort of ‘brain storage’ device. Ernst Cassirer, the 20 th  century Jewish-German philosophe