What I find fascinating about these discussions on the shapes of the letters is that our alphabet uses Aramaic letters . They were adopted during Galus Bavel. Prior to that, we used Paleo-Hebrew, which is shaped totally different. The Samaritans, who copied every we did, still write their ( tref ) sifrai torah in Paleo-hebrew which leads me to believe we dod too before the first churban.
Paleo-hebrew was still in use 2000 years ago as it appears on coins minted by Bar Cochba. The Aramaic script only appears after the first churban, only Paleo appears prior.
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