Prisoner Timothy Fenstermacher, a high school dropout, wrote to disagree with an article by an archaeologist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Archaeologist Orly Goldwasser had based her story on the birth of the alphabet in part on the appearance of the rare "Sinai hieroglyph," which she said was used in the Sinai during Egypt's Middle Kingdom.
Fenstermacher thought otherwise. "I believe the rarity of this hieroglyph has been overstated," he wrote to Biblical Archaeology Review.
Drawing on expertise gleaned from books sent to him in prison, improvised flashcard drills and correspondence with scholars, Fenstermacher gave examples of the hieroglyph's appearance outside the Sinai.
The magazine published the letter, just as it has others from prisoner J81961.
"The extent of this guy's self-taught scholarship is mind-boggling," said the review's editor, Hershel Shanks, adding that his staff had grown "quite fond" of Fenstermacher. "I wonder how a man could come from such difficulty and achieve such heights of scholarship."
Many prisoners pass time building up their bodies, studying law or writing bitter letters. Inspired by a chance reading of the Biblical Archaeology Review in a prison waiting room, Fenstermacher focused on learning. He began studying Egyptian history and language and writing letters to scholars.
His knowledge doesn't approach that of archaeologists who have spent years in formal training, but those he writes to say he's special.
"He is a natural for linguistics, working out on his own the mechanics of grammar, etc.," said retired Egyptologist Joyce Bartels of Lombard, Ill. Bartels has sent Fenstermacher books from her library and printouts from the Web and elsewhere, explaining that "Tim is a very likable person."
Goldwasser also stays in touch. She sends him copies of her recent papers and books on Egyptian grammar and other research topics.
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Few would have predicted two decades ago that Fenstermacher's life would go this way.
He was a wild young man who was running with the wrong group, say people who know him. His escapades got him in trouble twice, then culminated with his stabbing a man during a fight in the San Diego County community of Lakeside.
In 1996, Fenstermacher, then 24, was sentenced to 16 years for felony assault, a period extended by three years after an altercation with a guard in prison.
The prison confrontation landed him in solitary confinement, where he thrived because he could focus on Egyptology. When time came to return to the general prison population, he sought and won permission to remain in solitary.
Using the cartons from his allotment of morning milk, Fenstermacher would make flashcards, each bearing a single hieroglyph ? four a day for a decade. He read the cards while he worked out, forcing himself to get five right before switching exercises.
"Fortunately, I've been blessed with a phenomenal memory," he said. He now has what he calls "a small dictionary in my head."
He asked the couple who once had been his legal guardians, Mary and Richard Dinnen of El Cajon, to buy him a subscription to Biblical Archaeology Review. Mary responded that "I was wasting my time," Fenstermacher said. But they still got him the subscription.
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