Palmyrene

Palmyrene was a historical Semitic alphabet used to write the local Palmyrene dialect of Aramaic. It was used between 100 BCE and 300 CE in Palmyra in the Syrian desert. The oldest surviving Palmyrene inscription dates back to 44 BCE. The last surviving inscription dates to 274 CE, two years after Palmyra was sacked by Roman Emperor Aurelian, ending the Palmyrene Empire. The Palmyrene language and script became less popular, being replaced with and Latin.

Palmyrene was derived from the cursive versions of the Aramaic alphabet. They have a lot in common:

• twenty-two letters with only consonants represented;
• horizontal writing from right-to-left;
• numbers written right-to-left using a non-decimal system;
• absence of spaces or punctuation between words and sentences (scriptio continua style).

Speaking of the varieties, two forms of Palmyrene were developed: the rounded, cursive form derived from the Aramaic alphabet and later a decorative, monumental form developed from the cursive Palmyrene. Both the cursive and monumental forms commonly used typographic ligatures.