An investigation into the history of the Greek alphabet can be based on two foundations. It can rely on tradition and, on the other hand, on the evidence from the epigraphic monuments that have been preserved to us from various times. However, upon closer examination, tradition proves to be unreliable and unsuitable as a basis. This is not only because it largely relies on the accounts of later grammarians, whose relationship to their sources we can no longer verify, but also because its content is partly completely mythical in nature and partly stands in almost insurmountable contradiction to the testimonies of contemporary inscriptions. In this work, Adolf Kirchhoff describes his studies on the history of the Greek alphabet.