The script of the Aramaic-Akkadian bilingual inscription from Tell Fahariyeh, Syria, which is usually dated to the third quarter of the ninth century B.C., contains some of the apparently archaic features noted in the early Greek scripts (see A. Abbou-Assaf, P. Bordreuil, and A.R. Millard, La Statue de Tell Fekherye et son inscription bilingue assyro-araméenne, Études assyriologiques 7 [Paris: Editions recherches sur les civilisations, 1982]). My guess is that the Aramaic text is the work of a scribe who was deliberately archaizing in emulation of what for him was already an ancient script.
