 The Phoenician alphabet was known to the Jewish sages of the Second Temple era, who called it the "Old Hebrew" (paleo-Hebrew) script.The conventional date of 1050 BC for the emergence of the Phoenician script was chosen because there is a gap in the epigraphic record, there are not actually any Phoenician inscriptions securely dated to the 11th century.The oldest inscriptions are dated to the 10th century.