Libyco-Berber script (ancestor of Tifinagh)
Escritura líbico-bereber (antecesora del tifinagh)
- Date
- c. 300 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Dougga (Thugga), Béja, Tunisia
- Credited to
- Numidian and Libyan peoples
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A consonantal script of the Libyco-Berber peoples of North Africa, found on stelae and rocks from Tunisia to the Canary Islands. Its descendant, Tifinagh, is the alphabet used today by the Tuareg and in modern Berber.
Its origin is much debated: the thesis of derivation from the Phoenician-Punic alphabet competes with that of a local invention. The earliest securely dated inscriptions are Numidian, of the 3rd-2nd centuries BC, though the system may be older.
What it led to
- Numidian funerary inscriptions such as the bilingual mausoleum of Dougga (139 BC)
- the Tuareg Tifinagh and its modern revival (neo-Tifinagh)
- the basis of written Amazigh identity