When the cuneiform syllabary was superseded in Palestine by the so-called Phoenician alphabet we do not know.  The introduction of the new script was due probably to the Hittite invasion, which separated the Semites of the West from the Semites of the East.  The Hittite occupation of Carchemish blocked the high-road of Babylonian trade to the Mediterranean, and when the sacred city of Kadesh on the Orontes fell into Hittite hands it was inevitable that Hittite rather than Babylonian influence would henceforth prevail in Canaan.  However this may be, it seems natural to suppose that the scribes of Zebulon referred to in the Song of Deborah and Barak (Judges v. 14) wrote in the letters of the Phoenician alphabet and not in the cuneiform characters of Babylonia.  As long, indeed, as the old libraries remained open and accessible, with their stores of cuneiform literature, there must have been some who could read them, but they would have been rather the older inhabitants of the country than the alien conquerors from the desert.  When the Moabite Stone was engraved, it is clear from the forms of the letters that the Phoenician alphabet had long been in use in the kingdom of Mesha.  The resemblance of these letters to those found in the earliest of the Greek inscriptions makes it equally clear that the introduction of the alphabet into the islands of the AEgean must have taken place at no distant period from the age of the Moabite Stone.  Such an introduction, however, implies that the new alphabet had already taken deep root among the merchants of Canaan, and driven out before it the cumbrous syllabary of Chaldaea.  It was in this alphabet that Hiram and Solomon corresponded together, and it is probable that Moses made use of it.  We may even conjecture that the Israelitish settlement in Palestine brought with it the gift of the “Phoenician” alphabet.

As we have already seen, the elements of Babylonian art were quickly absorbed by the Canaanites.  The seal-cylinder was imitated, at first with but indifferent success, and such Babylonian ornamental designs as the rosette, the sacred tree, and the winged cherub were taken over and developed in a special way.  At times the combination with them of designs borrowed from Egypt produced a new kind of artistic ornament.

But it was in the realm of religion that the influence of Babylonia was most powerful.  Religion, especially in the ancient world, was inextricably bound up with its culture; it was impossible to adopt the one without adopting a good deal of the other at the same time.  Moreover, the Semites of Babylonia and of Canaan belonged to the same race, and that meant a community of inherited religious ideas.  With both the supreme object of worship was Baal or Bel, “the lord,” who was but the Sun-god under a variety of names.  Each locality had its own special Baal:  there were, in fact, as many Baals, or Baalim, as there were names and attributes for the Sun-god, and to the worshippers