The Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, also known as Northwest Semitic inscriptions, are the primary extra-Biblical source for understanding of the societies and histories of the ancient Phoenicians, Hebrews and Arameans. Semitic inscriptions may occur on stone slabs, pottery ostraca, ornaments, and range from simple names to full texts. The older inscriptions form a Canaanite–Aramaic dialect continuum, exemplified by writings which scholars have struggled to fit into either category, such as the Stele of Zakkur and the Deir Alla Inscription.
The Northwest Semitic languages are a language group that contains the Aramaic language, as well as the Canaanite languages including Phoenician and Hebrew.
Languages
The old Aramaic period (850 to 612 BC) saw the production and dispersal of inscriptions due to the rise of the Arameans as a major force in Ancient Near East. Their language was adopted as an international language of diplomacy, particularly during the late stages of the Neo-Assyrian Empire as well as the spread of Aramaic speakers from Egypt to Mesopotamia. The first known Aramaic inscription was the Carpentras Stela, found in southern France in 1704; it was considered to be Phoenician text at the time.
Only 10,000 inscriptions in Phoenician-Punic, a Canaanite language, are known, such that "Phoenician probably remains the worst transmitted and least known of all Semitic languages." The only other substantial source for Phoenician-Punic are the excerpts in Poenulus, a play written by the Roman writer Plautus (see Punic language § Example for an analysis). Within the corpus of inscriptions only 668 words have been attested, including 321 hapax legomena (words only attested a single time), per Wolfgang Röllig's analysis in 1983. This compares to the Bible's 7,000–8,000 words and 1,500 hapax legomena, in Biblical Hebrew. The first published Phoenician-Punic inscription was from the Cippi of Melqart, found in 1694 in Malta; the first published such inscription from the Phoenician "homeland" was the Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II published in 1855.
Fewer than 2,000 inscriptions in Ancient Hebrew, another Canaanite language, are known, of which the vast majority comprise just a single letter or word. The first detailed Ancient Hebrew inscription published was the Royal Steward inscription, found in 1870.
List of notable inscriptions
The inscriptions written in ancient Northwest Semitic script (Canaanite and Aramaic) have been catalogued into multiple corpora (i.e., lists) over the last two centuries. The primary corpora to have been produced are as follows:
- Hamaker, Hendrik Arent (1828). Miscellanea Phoenicia, sive Commentarii de rebus Phoenicum, quibus inscriptiones multae lapidum ac nummorum, nominaque propria hominum et locorum explicantur, item Punicae gentis lingua et religiones passim illustrantur. S. et J. Luchtmans.: Hamaker's review assessed 13 inscriptions
- Wilhelm Gesenius, Scripturae Linguaeque Phoeniciae. In the 1830s, only approximately 80 inscriptions and 60 coins were known in the entire Phoenicio-Punic corpus
- Schröder, Paul [in German] (1869). Die phönizische sprache. Entwurf Einer Grammatik, Nebst Sprach- und Schriftproben. Halle, Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses.: The first study of Phoenician grammar, listed 332 texts known at the time
- CIS: Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum; the first section is focused on Phoenician-Punic inscriptions (176 "Phoenician" inscriptions and 5982 "Punic" inscriptions)
- KAI: Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften, considered the "gold standard" for the last fifty years
- NSI: George Albert Cooke, 1903: Text-book of North-Semitic Inscriptions: Moabite, Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic, Nabataean, Palmyrene, Jewish
- NE: Mark Lidzbarski, 1898: Handbuch der Nordsemitischen Epigraphik, nebst ausgewählten Inschriften: I Text and II Plates
- KI: Lidzbarski, Mark (1907). Kanaanäische Inschriften (moabitisch, althebräisch, phönizisch, punisch). A. Töpelmann.
- TSSI: Gibson, J. C. L. (1971). Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions: I. Hebrew and Moabite Inscriptions. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-813159-5. Volume III. Phoenician Inscriptions, Including Inscriptions in the Mixed Dialect of Arslan Tash (Oxford: OUP, 1982; ISBN 978-0-19-813199-1)
- TAD: Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni (1986–2000), Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt
- Renz, J.; Röllig, W. (1995). Handbuch der althebräischen Epigraphik (in German). Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. ISBN 978-3-534-12297-4.
- Jongeling, K. (2008). Handbook of Neo-Punic Inscriptions. Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 978-3-16-149303-4.
- Sass, Benjamin; Finkelstein, Israel (2013). "The West Semitic Alphabetic Inscriptions, Late Bronze II to Iron IIA: Archeological Context, Distribution and Chronology". Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel. 2 (2): 149. doi:10.1628/219222713X13757034787838.
The inscriptions listed below include those which are mentioned in multiple editions of the corpora above (the numbers in the concordance column cross-refer to the works above), as well as newer inscriptions which have been published since the corpora above were published (references provided individually). They are ordered chronologically by date of their modern discovery, illustrating the development of the study of ancient Semitic epigraphy.
Name | Image | Discovered | No. units | Est. Date | Location found | Current Location | Concordance | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
KAI | CIS / RÉS | NE | KI | NSI | TSSI | Oth. ref. | |||||||
Punic-Libyan bilinguals | 1631 | 2 | Dougga | British Museum | 100–101 | 433,c | 93 | 52 | |||||
Cippi of Melqart | 1694 | 2 | 100s BC | Malta | Louvre and National Museum of Archaeology, Malta | 47 | I 122 | 425f | 53 | 36 | |||
Carpentras Stela | 1704 | 1 | Carpentras | Bibliothèque Inguimbertine | 269 | II 141 | 448b1 | 75 | II 24 | ||||
Pococke Kition inscriptions | 1738 | 31 | 300s BC | Cyprus | Ashmolean Museum | 33, 35 | I 11, 46, 57–85 | 420,4 | 19, 23, 27, 28 | 13, 16, 18, 19 | III 35 | ||
Benhisa inscription | 1761 | 1 | Malta | Cabinet des Médailles | I 124 | 426,3 | 55 | ||||||
Phoenician Harpocrates statues | 1770, 1963 | 2 | unknown | National Archaeological Museum (Madrid) and British Museum | 52 | R 1507 | 424 | 44 | III 37, 38 | ||||
Nora Stone | 1773 | 1 | Sardinia | Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cagliari | 46 | I 144 | 427c | 60 | 41 | III 11 | |||
Athenian Greek-Phoenician inscriptions | 1795 etc. | 18 | Athens, Piraeus | British Museum, Louvre, National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Archaeological Museum of Piraeus | 53–60 | I 115–120, R 388, 1215 | 424,1–3, 425,1–5 | 45–52 | 32–35 | III 40–41 | |||
Tripolitania Punic inscriptions | 1806 | Leptis Magna, Breviglieri, other | 118–132 | R 662 | 434, B-a | ||||||||
Elephantine papyri and ostraca | 1815–1945 | 300s BC | Elephantine | various | 270–271 | II 137–139, 154–155 | 73–74 | II 26, 28 | |||||
Mdina steles | 1816 | 2 | Malta | National Museum of Archaeology, Malta | 61 | I 123A–B | 426,2 | 54 | 37 | III 21,22 | |||
Carthaginian tombstones | 1817 onwards | Carthage | Carthage National Museum, others | 85 | various | 74 | |||||||
Humbert Punic inscriptions | 1817 | 5 | Carthage | Rijksmuseum van Oudheden | I 240 | 431, 9 | |||||||
Hamaker Punic inscriptions | 1823 | 3 | Carthage | Rijksmuseum van Oudheden | I 173, I 440 | 432, 16 | |||||||
Turin Aramaic Papyrus | 1823–24 | 1 | Museo Egizio | II 144 | |||||||||
Blacas papyrus | 1825 | 1 | Saqqara | British Library | II 145 | 76 | |||||||
Falbe Punic inscriptions | 1831 | 3 | Carthage | Copehagen University museum, British Museum | I 199 | 431, 10 | 75 | ||||||
Limyra bilingual | 1840 | 1 | Limyra | 262 | II 109 | 446b | |||||||
Abu Simbel Phoenician graffiti | 1842 | Abu Simbel | in situ | I 111-113 | 423b | 43 | |||||||
Ain Nechma inscriptions | 1843 | 40 | Guelma | Louvre | 166–169 | 437 | 58 | ||||||
Kellia inscription | 1844 | 1 | Cyprus | 36 | I 47 | 420,5 | 24 | 17 | |||||
Marseille Tariff | 1845 | 1 | 300s BC | Marseille | Musée d'archéologie méditerranéenne | 69 | I 165 | 428 | 63 | 42 | |||
Nimrud ivory inscriptions | 1845, 1961 | Nimrud | British Museum | I 6 | |||||||||
Assyrian lion weights | 1845–1860 | 800–500 BC | Nimrud, Abydos (Hellespont) | British Museum, Louvre | 263 | II 1–14, 108 | 446c | 66-67 | |||||
Phoenician metal bowls | 1849 onwards | c. 5-10 | 700s BC | Nimrud, Cyprus, Italy and others | various | I 164, II 46–49 | III 19 | ||||||
Anat Athena bilingual | 1850 | 1 | 312 BCE | Cyprus | in situ | 42 | I 95, R 1515 | 422,1 | 35 | 28 | |||
Bourgade inscriptions | 1852 | c. 40 | Carthage and wider Tunisia | 133–135 | 436,3–12 | 54 | |||||||
Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II | 1855 | 1 | c. 525 BC | Sidon | Louvre | 14 | I 3, R 1506 | 417,2 | 7 | 5 | III 28 | ||
Gozo stele | 1855 | 1 | Malta | Gozo Museum of Archaeology | 62 | I 132 | 426,4 | 56 | 38 | ||||
Serapeum Offering Table | 1855 | 1 | 400 BC | Saqqara | Louvre | 268 | II 123 | 448a2 | 72 | ||||
Cirta steles | 1857–61, 1875, 1950 | c. 1,000 | 300-100BCE | Constantine | Musée national Cirta | 102–116, 162–164 | R 327, 334, 339, 1544 | 433,1–9 and 434,10–12 | 94–99 | 51 | |||
Carthage Tariff | 1856-58 | 1 | 300 BC | Carthage | British Museum | 74 | I 167 | 429b | 66 | 43 | |||
Son of Baalshillek marble base | 1856-58 | 1 | Carthage | British Museum | 84 | I 178 | 430,7 | 73 | |||||
Carthage tower model | 1856-58 | 1 | Carthage | British Museum | I 181 | 432, 14 | 48 | ||||||
Bodashtart inscriptions | 1858, 1900-2 | 22-24 | 300s BC | Sidon | Louvre and Museum of the Ancient Orient | 15–16 | I 4, R 766, 767 | 8–10 | 6, Appendix I | ||||
Kition Resheph pillars | 1860 | 2 | 341 BC | Cyprus | Louvre | 32 | I 10, 88 | 420,1 | 18, 30 | 12, 23 | |||
Ankh-Hapy stele | 1860 | 1 | 525–404 BCE | unknown | Vatican Museums | 272 | II 142 | 448b2 | II 7 | ||||
Pauli Gerrei trilingual inscription | 1861 | 1 | Sardinia | Turin Archaeology Museum | 66 | I 143 | 427b | 59 | 40 | ||||
Baalshamin inscription | 1861 | 1 | 132 BC | Umm al-Amad | Louvre | 18 | I 7 | 418,d | 12 | 9 | |||
Phoenician sun dial | 1860–1945 | 1 | Umm al-Amad | National Museum of Beirut | I 9 | ||||||||
Umm al-Amad votive inscription | 1861 | 1 | Umm al-Amad, Lebanon | Louvre | I 8 | 419,2 | 13 | ||||||
Cesnola Phoenician inscriptions | 1865-71 | 28 | Kition | Metropolitan Museum of Art | I 14-39, RES 1521-34 | ||||||||
Khaznadar inscriptions | 1866-69 | c.120 | Carthage | Bardo National Museum (Tunis), Louvre | 88 | various | 431,11-13, 431,15 | 82-84 | |||||
Hadrumetum Punic inscriptions | 1867, 1946 | 12 | Sousse | Sousse Archaeological Museum, the Louvre and the Maison méditerranéenne des Sciences de l'homme | 97–99 | 432,1–3 | 91–92 | ||||||
Mesha Stele | 1868 | 1 | Dhiban | Louvre | 181 | 415 | 1 | 1 | I 16 | ||||
Abydos graffiti | 1868 | Abydos | in situ | 49 | I 99–110, R 1302ff. | 423a | 38-42 | 31 | |||||
Idalion bilingual and Idalion Temple inscriptions | 1869 | 6 | 391–254 BC | Idalion, Cyprus | British Museum | 38–40 | I 89–94 | 421,1–3 | 31–33 | 24–27 | III 34 | ||
Yehawmilk Stele | 1869 | 1 | c.450/425 BCE | Byblos | Louvre | 10 | I 1 | 416 | 5 | 3 | III 25 | ||
Tharros Punic inscriptions | 1870 | 14 | Sardinia | Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cagliari, Museo nazionale archeologico ed etnografico G. A. Sanna | 67 | I 153-161 | 61-62 | ||||||
Royal Steward inscription | 1870 | 1 | Jerusalem | British Museum | 191 | I 8 | |||||||
Carthaginian slaughterhouse inscription | 1871 | 1 | Carthage | British Museum | 80 | I 175 | 430,4 | 68 | 46 | ||||
Carthaginian mother goddess inscription | 1871 | 1 | Carthage | 83 | I 177 | 430,6 | 72 | 47 | |||||
Carthage Festival Offering inscription | 1872 | 1 | 300 BC | Carthage | Turin Archaeology Museum | 76 | I 166 | 430,3 | 67 | 44 | |||
Wilmanns Neopunic inscriptions | 1873-74 | 5 | Tunisia | Louvre and Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin | 139, 142, 159 | 435,2, 437a | 53, 55 | ||||||
Pricot de Sainte-Marie steles | 1874–75 | >2,000 | Carthage | Bibliothèque nationale de France, Louvre | 86–87 | I c.200–c.2000 | 76-80 | 49 | |||||
Cherchell Neopunic inscriptions | 1875, 1882 | 2 | Cherchell | Louvre | 161 | 439,2 | 56–57 | ||||||
Bashamem inscription | 1877 | 1 | 200 BC | Sardinia | Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cagliari | 64 | I 139 | 427a | 58 | 39 | |||
Baal Lebanon inscription | 1877 | 1 | 700s BC | Cyprus | Cabinet des Médailles | 31 | I 5 | 419 | 17 | 11 | III 17 | ||
Saqqara Aramaic Stele | 1877 | 1 | 482 BC | Saqqara | destroyed | 267 | II 122 | 448a1 | 71 | II 23 | |||
Tayma stones | 1878–1884 | 21 | 300s–400s BC | Tayma | Louvre | 228–230 | II 113–115 | 447,1–3 | 69–70 | II 30 | |||
Kition Tariffs | 1879 | 2 | 300s BC | Cyprus | British Museum | 37 | I 86A–B, 87 | 29 | 20 | III 33 | |||
Adadnadinakhe bricks | 1880s | 20+ | 300-100 BC | Girsu | Louvre, Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin | II 72 | 446c | ||||||
Siloam inscription | 1880 | 1 | Jerusalem | Museum of the Ancient Orient | 189 | 3 | 2 | I 7 | |||||
Sant'Antioco bilingual | 1881 | 1 | Sardinia | Museo archeologico comunale Ferruccio Barreca | 172 | I 149 | 434,1 | 100 | 60 | ||||
Palmyra Tariff | 1881 | 1 | 100s CE | Palmyra | Hermitage Museum | ||||||||
Osorkon Bust | 1881 | 1 | c.920 BC | Byblos | Louvre | 6 | III 8 | ||||||
Pierides Kition inscriptions | 1881 | 7 | Cyprus | Louvre | 12, 13, 14, 50–53 | 20, 25–26 | 14 | ||||||
Eshmun obelisk | 1881 | 1 | Cyprus | British Museum | I 44 | 420,2 | 21 | 15 | |||||
Persephone Punic stele | 1881 | 1 | Carthage | Turin Archaeology Museum | 82 | I 176 | 71 | ||||||
Lilybaeum stele | 1882 | 1 | Sicily | Regional Archeological Museum Antonio Salinas | 63 | I 138 | 57 | ||||||
Henchir Guergour Neopunic inscriptions | 1882 | Tunisia | 143–144 | ||||||||||
Guelaât Bou Sbaâ Neopunic inscriptions | 1884 | Algeria | 165 | ||||||||||
Hegra Nabataean inscriptions | 1884-85 | Hegra | II 197-334 | 78-93 | IV 7-8 | ||||||||
Tyre Cistern inscription | 1885 | 1 | Tyre | Louvre | 418,c | 8 | |||||||
Tamassos bilinguals | 1885 | 2 | 363 BC | Tamassos, Cyprus | British Museum | 41 | R 1212–1213 | 421c | 34 | 30 | |||
Masub inscription | 1885 | 1 | 222 BC | Masub | Louvre | 19 | R 1205 | 419e | 16 | 10 | III 31 | ||
Tabnit sarcophagus | 1887 | 1 | 500 BC | Sidon | Museum of the Ancient Orient | 13 | R 1202 | 417,1 | 6 | 4 | III 27 | ||
Panamuwa II inscription | 1888 | 1 | 730s BC | Sam'al | Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin | 215 | 442 | 62 | II 14 | ||||
Madaba Nabataean Inscriptions | 1889 | 1 | 37 CE | Madaba | Louvre and Vatican Museums | II 196 | 96 | IV 9 | |||||
Hadad Statue | 1890 | 1 | 700s BC | Sam'al | Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin | 214 | 440-2 | 61 | II 13 | ||||
Abdmiskar cippus | 1890 | 1 | 300 BCE | Sidon | Louvre | 282 | R 930 | 418,3 | 11 | 7 | |||
Abdbaal the centurion inscription | 1890s | 1 | near Tyre | Louvre | |||||||||
Maktar and Mididi inscriptions | 1890s | >150 | Maktar and Mididi | 145–158 | R 161–181, 2221 | 436,11 | 59a-c | ||||||
Bar-Rakib inscriptions | 1891 | 8 | 730s BC | Sam'al | Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin and Museum of the Ancient Orient | 216–221 | 443, 444 | 63 | II 15–17 | ||||
Neirab steles | 1891 | 2 | 600s BC | Al-Nayrab | Louvre | 225–226 | 445 | 64–65 | II 18–19 | ||||
Sarıaydın inscription | 1892 | 1 | 400 BC | Sarıaydın | in situ | 261 | 446a | 68 | II 35 | ||||
Larnakas tis Lapithou pedestal inscription | 1893 | 1 | 275 BCE | Cyprus | Louvre | 43 | R 1211 | 422,2 | 36 | 29 | III 36 | ||
Kilamuwa Stela | 1893 | 1 | c. 850/825 BCE | Sam'al | Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin | 24 | III 13 | ||||||
Hasanbeyli inscription | 1894 | 1 | Hasanbeyli | Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin | 23 | ||||||||
Kition Necropolis Phoenician inscriptions | 1894 | 4 | 300s BC | Cyprus | British Museum, Cyprus Museum, Ashmolean Museum | 34 | R 1206 | 420,3 | 22 | 21-22 | |||
Douïmès medallion | 1894 | 1 | 700 BCE | Carthage | Carthage National Museum | 73 | I 6057, R 5 | 429,1 | 70 | ||||
El Amrouni mausoleum | 1894 | 1 | Remada | 117 | 435b | 101 | |||||||
Abiba’l inscription | 1895 | 1 | c.940/930 BCE | Byblos | Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin | 5 | R 505 | III 7 | |||||
Arebsun inscriptions | 1895 | 1 | Afşin | Museum of the Ancient Orient | 264 | R 1785 | |||||||
Tortosa bomos inscription | 1896 | 1 | Tortosa, Syria | Louvre | R 56 | ||||||||
El-Osiris inscription | 1896 | 1 | Umm al-Amad | Louvre | R 504 | ||||||||
Avignon Punic inscription | 1897 | 1 | Avignon | Musée d'archéologie méditerranéenne | 70 | R 360 | 64 | III 18 | |||||
1898 | 1 | 200 BC | Carthage | Carthage National Museum | 81 | I 3914 | 69 | 45 | |||||
Punic Tabella Defixionis | 1899 | 1 | 200 BC | Carthage | Carthage National Museum | 89 | I 6068, R 18, 1590 | 85 | 50 | ||||
1899 | Carthage | Carthage National Museum | 91 | I 5991, R 1227 | 88 | ||||||||
Quintus Markius trilingual inscription | 1899 | 1 | middle of 1st century BC | Henchir-Alouin (near Uthina) | Louvre | R 79 | |||||||
Farasa bilingual inscription | 1900 | 1 | In situ | 265 | |||||||||
Phoenician Adoration steles | 1900 | 1 | Umm al-Amad, Lebanon | Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Louvre | R 250, R 307 | 14–15 | |||||||
Banobal stele | 1900 | 1 | Memphis | Egyptian Museum | 48 | R 1, 235 | 37 | ||||||
1900 | Bou Arada | 140 | R 679 | ||||||||||
1901 | Carthage | 96 | I 5988, R 183, 1600 | ||||||||||
Eshmun inscription | 1901 | 1 | Sidon | Museum of the Ancient Orient | R 297 | ||||||||
Sibbolet funeral inscription | 1902 | 1 | Carthage | Carthage National Museum | 92 | I 5948, R 768 | 89 | ||||||
Stele of Zakkur | 1903 | 1 | Tell Afis | Louvre | 202 | II 5 | |||||||
Villaricos Phoenician stele | 1903-04 | 1 | Villaricos | National Archaeological Museum (Madrid) | 65 | ||||||||
Assur ostracon and tablets | 1903–1913 | 10 | Assur | Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin | 233-6 | II 20 | |||||||
Baal Hannon tomb inscription | 1904 | Carthage | Carthage National Museum | 90 | I 5953, R 537 | 87 | |||||||
1905 | Carthage | Carthage National Museum | 93 | I 5950, R 553 | 90 | ||||||||
1906 | Carthage | 77 | I 3921 | ||||||||||
Lake Sivan inscriptions | 1906 | Armenia | 274–275 | ||||||||||
1906 | Carthage | 95 | R 786, 1854 | ||||||||||
Throne of Astarte | 1907 | 1 | Tyre | Louvre and National Museum of Beirut | 17 | R 800 | III 30 | ||||||
1907 | 1 | Carthage | 94 | I 2992 | |||||||||
Gözne Boundary Stone | 1907 | 1 | Gözne | 259 | II 34 | ||||||||
Thinissut sanctuary inscription | 1908 | 1 | Bir Bouregba | Nabeul Museum | 137 | R 942, 1858 | |||||||
Gezer calendar | 1908 | 1 | Gezer | Museum of the Ancient Orient | 182 | R 1201 | I 1 | ||||||
Samaria Ostraca | 1910 | 102 | Sebastia | Museum of the Ancient Orient | 183–188 | I 2–3 | |||||||
Olbia pedestal | 1911 | 1 | Sardinia | 68 | R 1216 | ||||||||
Giardino Birocchi inscription | 1912 | 1 | Sardinia | Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cagliari | 65 | ||||||||
Sardis bilingual inscription | 1912 | 1 | 394 BC | Sardis | İzmir Archaeological Museum | 260 | |||||||
Rhodes Phoenician-Greek bilingual inscriptions | 1914–68 | 3 | 300–200 BCE | Rhodes | Archaeological Museum of Rhodes | 44–45 | III 39 | ||||||
Bur Tlelsa Neopunic inscription | 1914 | 1 | Tunisia | 138 | |||||||||
Kesecek Köyü inscription | 1915 | 1 | Kesecek Köyü | Peabody Museum of Natural History | 258 | II 33 | |||||||
Aramaic Inscription of Taxila | 1915 | 1 | Taxila | Taxila Museum | 273 | ||||||||
Arwad bilingual | 1916 | 1 | Arwad | Louvre | |||||||||
Zattara Neopunic inscriptions | 1916 | Algeria | 171 | ||||||||||
Mitsri genealogy inscription | 1922 | 1 | 300s BCE | Carthage | 78 | I 3778 | |||||||
1920 | Carthage | 75 | I 3916 | ||||||||||
KNMY's child sacrifice(?) inscription | 1922 | 1 | Carthage | 79 | I 3785 | ||||||||
Ibiza Phoenician inscriptions | 1923 | Archaeological Museum of Alicante | 72 | ||||||||||
Ahiram Sarcophagus | 1923 | 1 | c.1000 BCE | Byblos | National Museum of Beirut | 1 | III 4 | ||||||
Byblos Necropolis graffito | 1923 | 1 | c.1000 BCE | Byblos | in situ | 2 | III 5 | ||||||
Byblos altar inscription | 1923 | 1 | 200–100 BCE | Byblos | National Museum of Beirut | 12 | |||||||
Ophel ostracon | 1924 | 1 | Jerusalem | Rockefeller Museum | 190 | I 9 | |||||||
Phoenician arrowheads | 1926 onwards | c. 70 | 11th century BCE | various | various | 20–22 | III p. 6 | ||||||
Ur Box inscription | 1927 | 1 | Ur | British Museum | 29 | III 20 | |||||||
Byblos bronze spatulas | 1926–1932 | 1 | Byblos | National Museum of Beirut | 3 | III 1 | |||||||
Abda sherd | 1926–1932 | 1 | c.900 BCE | Byblos | 8 | III 10 | |||||||
Son of Safatba'al inscription | 1926–1932 | 1 | c.500/475 BCE | Byblos | National Museum of Beirut | 9 | |||||||
Batnoam sarcophagus | 1926–1932 | 1 | c.450–425 BCE | Byblos | National Museum of Beirut | 11 | III 26 | ||||||
Sirte inscription | 1928 | 1 | Sirte | 180 | |||||||||
Yehimilk inscription | 1930 | 1 | c.960/950 BCE | Byblos | Byblos Castle | 4 | III 6 | ||||||
Sefire steles | 1930–1956 | 3 | As-Safira | National Museum of Damascus and National Museum of Beirut | 222–224, 227 | II 8–9, 22 | |||||||
Arslan Tash ivory inscription | 1931 | 1 | Arslan Tash | Louvre | 232 | II 2 | |||||||
Hama graffiti | 1931–38 | Hama | 203–213 | II 6 I–V | |||||||||
Pul-i-Darunteh Aramaic inscription | 1932 | 1 | c.260 BCE | Afghanistan | in situ | ||||||||
Arslan Tash amulets | 1933 | 2 | Arslan Tash | National Museum of Aleppo | 27 | III 23–24 | |||||||
Tell Halaf inscription | 1933 | 1 | Tell Halaf | destroyed | 231 | II 10 | |||||||
Bithia inscription | 1933 | 1 | Sardinia | 173 | |||||||||
Agrigentum inscription | 1934 | 1 | 406 BCE | Carthage | 302 | I 5510 | |||||||
Lachish letters | 1935 | 1 | Tel Lachish | British Museum and Israel Museum | 192–199 | I 12 | |||||||
Safatba'al inscription | 1936 | 1 | c.900 BCE | Byblos | National Museum of Beirut | 7 | III 9 | ||||||
Hermopolis Aramaic papyri | 1936 | 8 | 400s BC | Hermopolis | Cairo University Archaeological Museum | II 27 | |||||||
Phoenician papyrus letters | 1937–1940 | 2 | Cairo and Saqqara | Egyptian Museum | 50–51 | ||||||||
Melqart stele | 1939 | 1 | Bureij | National Museum of Aleppo | 201 | II 1 | |||||||
Honeyman inscription | 1939 | 1 | 900 BCE | Cyprus | Cyprus Museum | 30 | III 12 | ||||||
Stele of Serapeitis | 1940 | 1 | Armazi | Georgian National Museum | 276 | ||||||||
Jebel Massoudj Neopunic inscription | 1940 | 1 | Tunisia | 141 | |||||||||
Adon Papyrus | 1942 | 1 | Saqqara | Egyptian Museum | 266 | II 21 | |||||||
Kilamuwa scepter | 1943 | 1 | Sam'al | 25 | III 14 | ||||||||
Tel Qasile ostraca | 1945–1946 | 2 | Tel Qasile | Israel Museum | I 4 | ||||||||
Karatepe bilingual | 1946 | 1 | c. 750 BCE | Karatepe | Karatepe-Aslantaş Open-Air Museum | 26 | III 15 | ||||||
Tel el Maskhuta silver bowls | 1950s | II 25 | |||||||||||
Pumayyaton and Pnytarion's inscriptions | 1950s | 1 | c. 327 BC | near Dromolaxia, Cyprus | Larnaca District Archaeological Museum (n. 1425) | ||||||||
Byblos clay cone inscriptions | 1950 | 2 | 1100–1000 BCE | Byblos | National Museum of Beirut | III 2,3 | |||||||
Carchemish Phoenician inscription | 1950 | 1 | Carchemish | British Museum | 28 | ||||||||
Hatran Aramaic inscriptions | 1951 | Hatra | 237–257 | ||||||||||
Djinet Neopunic inscriptions | 1952 | Algeria | 170 | ||||||||||
1952 | 600s BC | Wadi Murabba'at | I 11 | ||||||||||
KAI 136 (Neopunic) | 1955 | Tunisia | 136 | ||||||||||
1956 | 800s BC | Tel Hazor | I 5 | ||||||||||
Al Jib jar handles | 1956–1959 | >60 | 700s BC | Al Jib | Jordan Archaeological Museum and the Penn Museum | I 14 | |||||||
Byblos marble inscription | 1957 | 1 | 500 BCE | Byblos | National Museum of Beirut | 280 | |||||||
Hashub Inscription | 1957 | 1 | 400s BCE | Tel Zeton | Old Jaffa Museum of Antiquities | ||||||||
Kubaba Aramaic inscription | 1957 | 1 | Bahadırlı | 278 | II 36 | ||||||||
El-Kerak Inscription | 1958 | 1 | Al-Karak | Jordan Archaeological Museum | 306 | I 17 | |||||||
Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription | 1958 | 1 | Chil Zena | National Museum of Afghanistan | 279 | ||||||||
Yavne-Yam ostracon | 1960 | 1 | Mesad Hashavyahu | Israel Museum | 200 | I 10 | |||||||
Arad ostraca | 1960s | >200 | c.600 BC | Tel Arad | Bible Lands Museum | I 13, II 31 | |||||||
Temple of Antas Punic inscriptions | 1960s | Sardinia | 299–301 | ||||||||||
1960s | Nebi Yunis (Ashdod) | II 32 | |||||||||||
1960s | 1 | Tel Dan | II 4 | ||||||||||
Seville statue of Astarte | 1960–1962 | 1 | 700 BCE | Seville | Archeological Museum of Seville | 294 | III 16 | ||||||
Khirbet Beit Lei graffiti | 1961 | 7 | 400s BC | Khirbet Beit Lei | Israel Museum | I 15 | |||||||
Amman Citadel Inscription | 1961 | 1 | Amman | Jordan Archaeological Museum | 307 | ||||||||
1961 | Ein Gev | II 3 | |||||||||||
Cadiz Phoenician gold ring inscription | 1961 | Instituto Valencia of Don Juan | 71 | ||||||||||
Phoenician Sphinx inscription | 1962 | 1 | Umm al-Amad | National Museum of Beirut | III 32 | ||||||||
Baalshillem Temple Boy | 1963–1964 | 1 | Sidon | National Museum of Beirut | 281 | III 29 | |||||||
Abydos Aramaic papyrus | 1964 | 1 | 400s BC | unknown | National Archaeological Museum of Madrid | II 29 | |||||||
Pyrgi Tablets | 1964 | 3 | Pyrgi | National Etruscan Museum | 277 | III 42 | |||||||
Carthage Administration Inscription | 1964 | 1 | Carthage | Carthage National Museum | 303 | ||||||||
Luristan Aramaic inscriptions | 1964 | Luristan | II 11–12 | ||||||||||
Daskyleion steles | 1965 | Dascylium | Museum of the Ancient Orient | 318 | II 37 | ||||||||
Mozia Punic inscriptions | 1967 | Sicily | 296–298 | ||||||||||
Deir Alla Inscription | 1967 | 1 | Deir Alla | Jordan Archaeological Museum | 312 | ||||||||
Grotta Regina Punic inscriptions | 1969 | Sicily | 295 | ||||||||||
Kition KAI 288–290 | 1970s-80s | Kition | 288–290 | ||||||||||
Tekke Bowl Inscription (Knossos) | 1970s | 1,000s BCE | Crete | Heraklion Archaeological Museum (Χ4346) | 291 | ||||||||
Aramaic Sustenance tablet | 1970s | 316 | |||||||||||
Aramaic inscription of Laghman | 1970 | 1 | c.260 BCE | Afghanistan | in situ | ||||||||
Aramaic Fugitive Decree | 1971 | Unknown | 317 | ||||||||||
Tel Siran inscription | 1972 | 1 | Amman | Jordan Archaeological Museum | 308 | ||||||||
Letoon trilingual | 1973 | 1 | Xanthos | Fethiye Museum | 319 | ||||||||
Aramaic inscription from al-Mal | 1973 | 7/6 BC | |||||||||||
Tell Sheikh Hamad inscriptions | 1978–1980s | Tell Sheikh Hamad | 313–314 | ||||||||||
Hadad-yith'i bilingual inscription | 1979 | 1 | Tell Fekheriye | National Museum of Damascus | 309 | ||||||||
Ketef Hinnom scrolls | 1979 | 2 | 650–587 BCE | Jerusalem | Israel Museum | ||||||||
1980s | Sarafand | 285 | |||||||||||
Çebel Ires Daǧı inscription | 1980 | 1 | Çebel Ires Daǧı | Alanya Archaeological Museum | 287 | ||||||||
Abdalonymos bilingual | 1982 | 1 | 325 BCE | Kos | 292 | ||||||||
1982 | 1 | 800–500 BCE | Byzantine Spolia near the Southern Wall | Israel Museum | |||||||||
Hazael horse frontlet | 1984 | 1 | 800 BCE | Samos | Archaeological Museum of Vathi | 311 | |||||||
Bukan inscription | 1985 | Bukan | 320 | ||||||||||
İvriz inscription | 1986 | 75 meter upstream from the İvriz relief | unpublished | ||||||||||
Bactria Aramaic documents | 1993–2002 | 353–324 BCE | Bactria | Khalili Collections | |||||||||
Tel Dan Stele | 1993 | 1 | Tel Dan | Israel Museum | 310 | ||||||||
Tell Shiukh Fawqani inscription | 1996 | 315 | |||||||||||
Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription | 1996 | 1 | Tel Miqne | Israel Museum | 286 | ||||||||
Çineköy inscription | 1997 | 1 | Çine, Yüreğir | Adana Archaeology Museum | |||||||||
Tablet De Geest | 2000 | 1 | 200s CE | Socotra | in situ | ||||||||
Zayit Stone | 2005 | 1 | c. 900 BCE | Tel Zayit | |||||||||
Kuttamuwa stele | 2008 | 1 | Sam'al | Gaziantep Archaeology Museum | |||||||||
Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon | 2009 | 1 | c. 1000 BCE | Khirbet Qeiyafa | Israel Museum | ||||||||
Ataruz altar inscriptions | 2010 | c. 800 BCE | Khirbat Ataruz | ||||||||||
Ishbaal Inscription | 2012 | 1020–980 BCE | Khirbet Qeiyafa | ||||||||||
KAI 283 | Sidon | 283 | |||||||||||
KAI 284 | Tyre | 284 | |||||||||||
Demetrias inscription | Demetrias | 293 |
Bibliography
- Röllig, Wolfgang [in German] (1983). "The Phoenician Language: Remarks on the Present State of Research". Atti del I Congresso Internazionale di Studi Fenici e Punici. Vol. 2. Rome. pp. 375–385. doi:10.11588/propylaeumdok.00001074.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
See also
- List of inscriptions in biblical archaeology
- Carthaginian tombstones
- Epigraphy
- Ancient Hebrew writings
References
- Lehmann, Reinhard G. [in German] (2013). "Wilhelm Gesenius and the Rise of Phoenician Philology" (PDF). Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. 427. Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter: 209–266. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-04-08.
Alas, all these were either late or Punic, and came from Cyprus, from the ruins of Kition, from Malta, Sardinia, Athens, and Carthage, but not yet from the Phoenician homeland. The first Phoenician text as such was found as late as 1855, the Eshmunazor sarcophagus inscription from Sidon.
- Turner, William Wadden (1855-07-03). The Sidon Inscription. p. 259.
Its interest is greater both on this account and as being the first inscription properly so-called that has yet been found in Phoenicia proper, which had previously furnished only some coins and an inscribed gem. It is also the longest inscription hitherto discovered, that of Marseilles—which approaches it the nearest in the form of its characters, the purity of its language, and its extent — consisting of but 21 lines and fragments of lines.
- Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften. 1961.
Seit dem Erscheinen von Mark Lidzbarskis "Handbuch der Nordsemitischen Epigraphik" (1898) und G. A. Cooke's "Text-Book of North-Semitic Inscriptions" (1903) ist es bis zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt nicht wieder unternommen worden, das nordwestsemitische In schriftenmaterial gesammelt und kommentiert herauszugeben, um es Forschern und Stu denten zugänglich zu machen.... Um diesem Desideratum mit Rücksicht auf die Bedürfnisse von Forschung und Lehre abzu helfen, legen wir hiermit unter dem Titel "Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften" (KAI) eine Auswahl aus dem gesamten Bestände der einschlägigen Texte vor
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ignored (help) - Mark Woolmer (ed.). "Phoenician: A Companion to Ancient Phoenicia". A Companion to Ancient Phoenicia, ed. Mark Woolmer: 4.
Altogether, the known Phoenician texts number nearly seven thousand. The majority of these were collected in three volumes constituting the first part of the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum (CIS), begun in 1867 under the editorial direction of the famous French scholar Ernest Renan (1823–1892), continued by J.-B. Chabot and concluded in 1962 by James G. Février. The CIS corpus includes 176 "Phoenician" inscriptions and 5982 "Punic" inscriptions (see below on these labels).
[self-published source?] - Parker, Heather Dana Davis; Rollston, Christopher A. (2019). "Teaching Epigraphy in the Digital Age". In Hamidović, David; Clivaz, Claire; Savant, Sarah Bowen (eds.). Ancient Manuscripts in Digital Culture. pp. 189–216. doi:10.1163/9789004399297_011. ISBN 978-90-04-39929-7. JSTOR 10.1163/j.ctvrxk44t.14. S2CID 182624532. p. 190:
Of course, Donner and Röllig's three-volume handbook entitled KAI has been the gold standard for five decades now
- Suder, Robert W. (1984). Hebrew Inscriptions: A Classified Bibliography. Susquehanna University Press. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-941664-01-1.
- Doak, Brian R. (2019-08-26). The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean. Oxford University Press. p. 223. ISBN 978-0-19-049934-1.
Most estimates place it at around ten thousand texts. Texts that are either formulaic or extremely short constitute the vast majority of the evidence.
- Kaufman, Stephen A. (1986). "The Pitfalls of Typology: On the Early History of the Alphabet". Hebrew Union College Annual. 57: 1–14. JSTOR 23507690.
- McCarter Jr., P. Kyle (1 January 1991). "The Dialect of the Deir Alla Texts". In Jacob Hoftijzer and Gerrit Van der Kooij (ed.). The Balaam Text from Deir ʻAlla Re-evaluated: Proceedings of the International Symposium Held at Leiden, 21–24 August 1989. BRILL. pp. 87–. ISBN 90-04-09317-6.
It may be appropriate to observe at this point that students of the Northwest Semitic languages seem to be becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the usefulness of the Canaanite-Aramaic distinction for categorizing features found in texts from the Persian Period and earlier. A careful reevaluation of the binary organization of the Northwest Semitic family seems now to be underway. The study of the Deir 'Alla texts is one of the principal things prompting this reevaluation, and this may be counted as one of the very positive results of our work on these texts… the evidence of the Zakkur inscription is crucial, because it shows that the breakdown is not along Aramaic-Canaanite lines. Instead, the Deir 'Alla dialect sides with Hebrew, Moabite, and the language spoken by Zakkur (the dialect of Hamath or neighboring Lu'ath) against Phoenician and the majority of Old Aramaic dialects.
- KAUFMAN, STEPHEN A. (1985). "המיון של הדיאלקטים השמיים הצפוניים-מערביים מתקופת המקרא" [THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE NORTH WEST SEMITIC DIALECTS OF THE BIBLICAL PERIOD AND SOME IMPLICATIONS THEREOF]. Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies. ט: 41–57. JSTOR 23529398.
The very term "Canaanite" is meaningful only vis-a-vis something else – i.e. Aramaic, and, as we shall see, each new epigraphic discovery of the early first millennium seems to contribute further evidence that the division between Canaanite and Aramaic cannot be traced back any distance into the second millennium and that the term "Canaanite," in a linguistic as opposed to an ethnic sense, is irrelevant for the Late Bronze Age. Ugaritic is a rather peripheral member of the Late Bronze Age proto-Canaanite-Aramaic dialect continuum, a dead-end branch of NW Semitic, without known descendants. Our inability to reach a universally acceptable decision on the classification of Ugaritic is by no means due only to our less than total knowledge of the language. As witnessed by the case of the Ethiopian dialects studied by Hetzron, even when we do have access to relatively complete information, classification is by no means a certain thing. How much more so, then, in the case of dialects attached in a few short, broken inscriptions! The dialect of ancient Samal has been the parade example of such a case within the NW Semitic realm. Friedrich argued long and hard for its independent status; of late, however, a consensus seems to have developed that Samalian is Aramaic, albeit of an unusual variety. The achievement of such a consensus is due in no small part to the ongoing recognition of the dialectal diversity within Aramaic at periods much earlier than previously considered, a recognition largely due to the work of our main speaker, Prof. J.C. Greenfield. When we tum to the dialect of the language of the plaster texts from Deir 'Alla, however, scholarly agreement is much less easy to perceive. The texts were published as Aramaic, or at least Aramaic with a question mark, a classification to which other scholars have lent their support. The savants of Jerusalem, on the other hand, seem to be agreed that the language of Deir 'Alla is Canaanite – perhaps even Ammonite. Now frankly I have never been much interested in classification. My own approach has always been rather open-ended. If a new language appears in Gilead in the 8th century or so, looks somewhat like Aramaic to its North, Ammonite and Moabite to its South, and Hebrew to its West (that is to say: it looks exactly like any rational person would expect it to look like) and is clearly neither ancestor nor immediate descendant of any other known NW Semitic language that we know, why not simply say it is Gileadite and be done with it? Anyone can look at a map and see that Deir 'Alla is closer to Rabbat Ammon than it is to Damascus, Samaria or Jerusalem, but that doesn't a priori make it Ammonite. Why must we try to squeeze new evidence into cubbyholes designed on the basis of old evidence?
- Garr, W. Randall (2004). "The Dialectal Continuum of Syria-Palestine". Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine, 1000-586 B.C.E. Eisenbrauns. pp. 205–. ISBN 978-1-57506-091-0.
- Huehnergard, John; Pat-El, Na’ama (2005). The Semitic Languages. Oxon: Routledge. p. 114. ISBN 0415057671.
- Gibson, J. C. L. (30 October 1975). Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions: II. Aramaic Inscriptions: Including Inscriptions in the Dialect of Zenjirli. OUP Oxford. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-19-813186-1.
The Carpentras stele: The famous funerary stele (CIS ii 141) was the first Syrian Semitic inscr. to become known in Europe, being discovered in the early 18 cent.; it measures 0.35 m high by 0.33m broad and is housed in a museum at Carpentras in southern France.
- Daniels, Peter T. (31 March 2020). "The Decipherment of Ancient Near Eastern Languages". In Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee (ed.). A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 7–8. ISBN 978-1-119-19329-6.
Barthélemy was not done. On 13 November 1761, he interpreted the inscription on the Carpentras stela (KAI 269), again going letter by letter, but the only indication he gives of how he arrived at their values is that they were similar to the other Phoenician letters that were by now well known… He includes a list of roots as realized in various languages – and also shows that Coptic, which he conjectured was the continuation of the earlier language of the hieroglyphs, shares a variety of grammatical features with the languages listed above. The name "Semitic" for those languages lay two decades in the future, and the group "Aramaic," which from the list includes Syriac, Chaldaean [Jewish Aramaic], and Palmyrene, as well as the Carpentras stela, seems to have been named only about 1810 though it was recognized somewhat earlier (Daniels 1991)
- Lehmann, Reinhard G. (2013). "Wilhelm Gesenius and the Rise of Phoenician Philology". Biblische Exegese und hebräische Lexikographie. pp. 209–266. doi:10.1515/9783110267044.209. ISBN 978-3-11-026612-2. Quote: "Nearly two hundred years later the repertory of Phoenician-Punic epigraphy counts about 10.000 inscriptions from throughout the Mediterranean and its environs."
- Rollig, 1983
- Rollig, 1983, "The Phoenician-Punic vocabulary attested to date amounts to some 668 words, some of which occur frequently. Among these are 321 hapax legomena and about 15 foreign or loan words. In comparison with Hebrew with around 7000–8000 words and 1500 hapax legomena (8), the number is remarkable."
- Ullendorff, Edward (1971). "Is Biblical Hebrew a Language?". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 34 (2): 241–255. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00129520. JSTOR 612690. S2CID 162745779.
- Lehmann, Reinhard G. (2013). "Wilhelm Gesenius and the Rise of Phoenician Philology" (PDF). Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. 427. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH: 210 and 257. ISBN 978-3-11-026612-2. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2014-02-21.
Soon thereafter, at the end of the 17th century, the abovementioned Ignazio di Costanzo was the first to report a Phoenician inscription and to consciously recognize Phoenician characters proper... And just as the Melitensis prima inscription played a prominent part as the first-ever published Phoenician inscription... and remained the number-one-inscription in the Monumenta (fig. 8), it now became the specimen of authentic Phoenician script par excellence... The Melitensis prima inscription of Marsa Scirocco (Marsaxlokk) had its lasting prominence as the palaeographic benchmark for the assumed, or rather deduced "classical" Phoenician ("echtphönikische") script.
- Millard, Alan (1993). "Review of Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions. Corpus and Concordance". The Journal of Theological Studies. 44 (1): 216–219. doi:10.1093/jts/44.1.216. JSTOR 23967100.
…every identifiable Hebrew inscription dated before 200 BC… First ostraca, graffiti, and marks are grouped by provenance. This section contains more than five hundred items, over half of them ink-written ostraca, individual letters, receipts, memoranda, and writing exercises. The other inscriptions are names scratched on pots, scribbles of various sorts, which include couplets on the walls of tombs near Hebron, and letters serving as fitters' marks on ivories from Samaria.... The seals and seal impressions are set in the numerical sequence of Diringer and Vattioni (100.001–100.438). The pace of discovery since F. Vattioni issued his last valuable list (Ί sigilli ebraici III', AnnaliAnnali dell'Istituto Universitario Orientate di Napoli 38 (1978), 227—54) means the last seal entered by Davies is 100.900. The actual number of Hebrew seals and impressions is less than 900 because of the omission of those identified as non-Hebrew which previous lists counted. A further reduction follows when duplicate seal impressions from different sites are combined, as cross references in the entries suggest... The Corpus ends with 'Royal Stamps' (105.001-025, the Imlk stamps), '"Judah" and "Jerusalem" Stamps and Coins' (106.001-052), 'Other Official Stamps' (107.001), 'Inscribed Weights' (108.001-056) and 'Inscribed Measures' (109.001,002).... most seals have no known provenance (they probably come from burials)... Even if the 900 seals are reduced by as much as one third, 600 seals is still a very high total for the small states of Israel and Judah, and most come from Judah. It is about double the number of seals known inscribed in Aramaic, a language written over a far wider area by officials of great empires as well as by private persons.
- Graham I. Davies; J. K. Aitken (2004). Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance. Cambridge University Press. p. xi. ISBN 978-0-521-82999-1.
This sequel to my Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions includes mainly inscriptions (about 750 of them) which have been published in the past ten years. The aim has been to cover all publications to the end of 2000. A relatively small number of the texts included here were published earlier but were missed in the preparation of AHI. The large number of new texts is not due, for the most part, to fresh discoveries (or, regrettably, to the publication of a number of inscriptions that were found in excavations before 1990), but to the publication of items held in private collections and museums.
- AVIGAD, N. (1953). "The Epitaph of a Royal Steward from Siloam Village". Israel Exploration Journal. 3 (3): 137–152. JSTOR 27924525.
The inscription discussed here is, in the words of its discoverer, the first 'authentic specimen of Hebrew monumental epigraphy of the period of the Kings of Judah', for it was discovered ten years before the Siloam tunnel inscription. Now, after its decipherment, we may add that it is (after the Moabite Stone and the Siloam tunnel inscription) the third longest monumental inscription in Hebrew and the first known text of a Hebrew sepulchral inscription from the pre-Exilic period.
- Clermont-Ganneau, 1899, Archaeological Researches In Palestine 1873–1874, Vol 1, p.305: "I may observe, by the way, that the discovery of these two texts was made long before that of the inscription in the tunnel, and therefore, though people in general do not seem to recognise this fact, it was the first which enabled us to behold an authentic specimen of Hebrew monumental epigraphy of the period of the Kings of Judah."
- Lehmann, Reinhard G. [in German] (2013). "Wilhelm Gesenius and the Rise of Phoenician Philology" (PDF). Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. 427. Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter: 240. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-04-08.
Basically, its core consists of the comprehensive edition, or re-edition of 70 Phoenician and some more non-Phoenician inscriptions... However, just to note the advances made in the nineteenth century, it is noteworthy that Gesenius' precursor Hamaker, in his Miscellanea Phoenicia of 1828, had only 13 inscriptions at his disposal. On the other hand only 30 years later the amount of Phoenician inscribed monuments had grown so enormously that Schröder in his compendium Die phönizische Sprache. Entwurf einer Grammatik nebst Sprach- und Schriftproben of 1869 could state that Gesenius knew only a quarter of the material Schröder had at hand himself.
- "Review of Wilhelm Gesenius's publications". The Foreign Quarterly Review. L. Scott. 1838. p. 245.
What is left consists of a few inscriptions and coins, found principally not where we should a priori anticipate, namely, at the chief cities themselves, but at their distant colonies... even now there are not altogether more than about eighty inscriptions and sixty coins, and those moreover scattered through the different museums of Europe.
- Rollig, 1983, "This increase of textual material can be easily appreciated when one looks at the first independent grammar of Phoenician, P.SCHRODER'S Die phonizische Sprache Entuurf einer Grammatik, Halle 1869, which appeared just over 110 years ago. There on pp. 47–72 all the texts known at the time are listed — 332 of them. Today, if we look at CIS Pars I, the incompleteness of which we scarcely need mention, we find 6068 texts."
- Parker, Heather Dana Davis; Rollston, Christopher A. (2019). "Teaching Epigraphy in the Digital Age". In Hamidović, D.; Clivaz, C.; Savant, S. (eds.). Ancient Manuscripts in Digital Culture: Visualisation, Data Mining, Communication. Vol. 3. Alessandra Marguerat. Brill. pp. 189–216. ISBN 978-90-04-34673-4. JSTOR 10.1163/j.ctvrxk44t.14.
Of course, Donner and Röllig's three-volume handbook entitled KAI has been the gold standard for five decades now
- Bevan, A. A. (1904). "North-Semitic Inscriptions". The Journal of Theological Studies. 5 (18): 281–284. doi:10.1093/jts/os-V.18.281. JSTOR 23949814.
- ICO: Amadasi Guzzo, Maria Giulia (1967). Le iscrizioni fenicie e puniche delle colonie in Occidente. Studi semitici (in Italian). Istituto di studi del Vicino Oriente, Università. Retrieved 2022-10-13.
- AO 4831
- Moriggi, Marco (2011). "Phoenician and Punic Inscriptions in the Museo di Antichità di Torino (Turin, Italy)". Egitto e Vicino Oriente. 34: 81–94. JSTOR 24233436.
- See Commons:Category:Euting Nabataean inscriptions from Hegra, Al-Ula
- Clermont-Ganneau, Charles Simon (1897). "Une inscription phénicienne de Tyr". Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. 41 (4): 347–349. doi:10.3406/crai.1897.71008.
- Twelve Arebsun steles
- Smirnow, Y.J., 1895, Arbeiten der Abteilung für klassische, byzantinische und westeuropäische Altertumskunde, Erstes Buch, 1895 = Journal de la société russe d’archéologie / Zapisky Imperatorskoe Russkoe archeologicheskoe Obshchestvo, Nlle série 8/3-4 (Petersburg), 1896, 444-446.
- Halevy, [1] (with image)
- Clermont-Ganneau, Ch., 1898, Inscription araméenne de Cappadoce, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres : 630-640, 808-810.André Lemaire, textes araméens d’Anatolie d’époque perse, 3 octobre 2000
- Clermont-Ganneau, Ch., 1900, https://archive.org/details/RecueilDarchologieOrientaletome3/page/n71/mode/2up?view=theater Inscription araméenne de Cappadoce], Recueil d’archéologie orientale III, Paris : 59-70, spéc. 69-70.
- Lemaire, André, à paraître, Les pierres et inscriptions araméennes d’Arebsun (Cappadoce). Nouvel examen, dans S. Shaked-A. Netzer éd., Irano-Judaica IV, Jérusalem.
- Lidzbarski, M., 1900-1902, Aramäische Inschriften aus Kappadocien, Ephemeris für semitische, Epigraphik I, Giessen : 59-74, 319-326, spéc. 72-74.
- Marquart 1905 [2]
- Teixidor, Javier (1979). "L'inscription phénicienne de Tartous (RÉS 56)". Syria. 56 (1/2). Institut Francais du Proche-Orient: 145–151. doi:10.3406/syria.1979.6656. ISSN 0039-7946. JSTOR 4198182. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
- Dussaud, René, Voyage en Syrie, Oct-Nov 1896, Revue Archéologique, 30, 1897, p. 332-336
- Clermont-Ganneau, Deux statues pheniciennes à inscriptions, Recueil d'archéologie orientale, 1903, p.373-
- Lidzbarski, Ephemeris für semitische Epigraphik, II, p.165-
- Berger, Philippe; Cagnat, René Louis Victor (1899). "L'inscription trilingue d'Henchir Alaouin". Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. 43 (1): 48–54. doi:10.3406/crai.1899.71329.
- Vassel, Eusèbe (1907). "Notes sur quelques stèles puniques". Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. 51 (5): 262–265. doi:10.3406/crai.1907.72083.
- Sola Solé, Josep M. (1951–52). "La plaquette en bronze d'Ibiza". Semitica. IV. Paris: 25 ff.
Sola Solé, Josep M. (1955). "Inscripciones fenicias en la Peninsula Ibérica". Sefarad. XV. Madrid - Barcelona: 45ff.
Littmann, Enno (1932). "Punische Inschriften aus Ibiza". Forschungen und Fortschritte: Nachrichtenblatt der Deutschen Wissenschaft und Technik (in German). 8: 179. - Schmitz, Philip C. (1994). "The Name 'Agrigentum' in a Punic Inscription (CIS I 5510.10)". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 53 (1): 1–13. doi:10.1086/373651. JSTOR 545353. S2CID 161397507.
- Note sur l'inscription punique d'une borne limite découverte en Tunisie
- Garbini, Giovanni (1968). "Note di Epigrafia Punica – III". Rivista degli studi orientali. 43 (1). [Fabrizio Serra Editore, Sapienza – Universita di Roma]: 5–17. ISSN 0392-4866. JSTOR 41880004. Retrieved 2023-04-24.
- Honeyman, A. M. (1960). "Inscriptions from Cyprus". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (3/4): 111–112. ISSN 0035-869X. JSTOR 25202364.
- Series of articles in the journal Sumer
- Aggoula B., Inventaire des inscriptions hatréennes, Paris, 1991.
Beyer K., Die aramäischen Inschriften aus Assur, Ḥatra und dem übrigen Ostmesopotamien (datiert 44 v.Chr. bis 238 n.Chr.), Göttingen, 1998.
Healey, J., Aramaic Inscriptions & Documents of the Roman Period, (Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions, Volume IV), Oxford, 2009. - Jacob Kaplan (1958). "The Excavation in Tell Abu Zeitun in 1957". Bulletin of the Israel Exploration Society (in Hebrew). 22 (1/2). Israel Exploration Society: 99. JSTOR 23730357.
- Dupont-Sommer, André (1961). "Une inscription araméenne inédite de Cilicie et la déesse Kubaba". Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (in French). 105 (1): 19–23. doi:10.3406/crai.1961.11248. ISSN 0065-0536 – via PERSEE.
- https://base-map-polytheisms.huma-num.fr/source/1660 n.1 in Garbini G., Le iscrizioni fenicie, in R. Zucca (ed.), Il tempio del Sardus Pater ad Antas, Rome, 2019, 67-86
- Solà-Solé, Josep María (1961). "La inscripción púnica Hispania". Sefarad (in Spanish). 21 (2). Instituto "Arias Montano.": 251–256.
- Amadasi, M.G. (1986). Scavi a Mozia, le iscrizioni. Collezione di studi fenici (in Italian). Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche. p. Numbers 23, 24, 31. Retrieved 2022-05-31.
- https://base-map-polytheisms.huma-num.fr/source/1611 No. 23 = KAI 296
No. 24 = KAI 297
No. 31 = KAI 298
Amadasi Guzzo M.G., Scavi a Mozia - Le iscrizioni, Rome 1986 - Bisi, A.M.; Amadasi, M.G. (1969). Grotta Regina, I.: Rapporto preliminare della Missione congiunta con la Soprintendenza alle antichità della Sicilia occidentale (in Italian). Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche. p. Number 38A. Retrieved 2022-05-31.
- KAI 288 [probably in the Cyprus museum]
- Yon, Marguerite; Sznycer, Maurice (1991). "Une inscription phénicienne royale de Kition, Chypre". Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (in French). 135 (4). PERSEE Program: 791–823. doi:10.3406/crai.1991.15050. ISSN 0065-0536.
- https://base-map-polytheisms.huma-num.fr/source/269
- 144 in Calvet, Y.; Salles, J.F. (1982). Kition-Bamboula: Kition dans les textes. Testimonia littéraires et épigraphiques et Corpus des inscriptions (in French). Vol. 5. Editions Recherche sur les civilisations. ISBN 978-2-86538-292-7. Retrieved 2023-09-24.
- KAI 289 https://base-map-polytheisms.huma-num.fr/source/29
- A30 (Three lines) in Guzzo, M.G.A.; Karageorghis, V. (1977). Fouilles de Kition: Inscriptions phéniciennes (in French). Vol. 3. Department of Antiquities, Cyprus. Retrieved 2023-09-24.
- 1030 in Calvet, Y.; Salles, J.F. (1982). Kition-Bamboula: Kition dans les textes. Testimonia littéraires et épigraphiques et Corpus des inscriptions (in French). Vol. 5. Editions Recherche sur les civilisations. ISBN 978-2-86538-292-7. Retrieved 2023-09-24.
- KAI 290 Three lines
- Cross, Frank Moore (1980). "Newly Found Inscriptions in Old Canaanite and Early Phoenician Scripts". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (238): 15–17. doi:10.2307/1356511. ISSN 0003-097X. JSTOR 1356511. S2CID 222343641.
- Bourogiannis, Giorgos. The Phoenician presence in the Aegean during the Early Iron Age: Trade, settlement and cultural interaction, Rivista di Studi Fenici 46, 2018, p. 63.
- Sznycer, Maurice (1979). "L'INSCRIPTION PHÉNICIENNE DE TEKKE, PRES DE CNOSSOS". Kadmos. 18 (1). doi:10.1515/kadm.1979.18.1.89. ISSN 0022-7498.
- Bordreuil, Pierre, "Une tablette araméenne inédite de 635 av. J.-C.." Sem 23 (1973): 95–102 + pls. I-V.
- Fales, Frederick Mario, "Sulla tavoletta aramaica A.O. 25.341." AION 36 (1976): 541–47.
- Kaufman, Stephen A., "An Assyro-Aramaic egirtu ša Šulmu." Pp. 119–27 In Essays on the Ancient Near East in Memory of Jacob Joel Finkelstein. Ellis, M. de Jong, ed. Hamden, Ct.: Archon, 1977.
- Wesselius, J.W., "A Document Concerning the Sustenance of a Mother by Her Sons." AION 45 (1985): 506–8.
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- TelShHa 3 and TelShHa 5
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{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - KAI 283, 15 legible lines, left side damaged
- KAI 284, 21 inscriptions, few words
The Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions also known as Northwest Semitic inscriptions are the primary extra Biblical source for understanding of the societies and histories of the ancient Phoenicians Hebrews and Arameans Semitic inscriptions may occur on stone slabs pottery ostraca ornaments and range from simple names to full texts The older inscriptions form a Canaanite Aramaic dialect continuum exemplified by writings which scholars have struggled to fit into either category such as the Stele of Zakkur and the Deir Alla Inscription The Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II was the first of this type of inscription found anywhere in the Levant modern Jordan Israel Lebanon Palestine and Syria The Northwest Semitic languages are a language group that contains the Aramaic language as well as the Canaanite languages including Phoenician and Hebrew LanguagesPhoenician alphabetAramaic alphabetThis article lists the notable inscriptions written in Canaanite previously known as Phoenician and today split into Phoenician proper paleo Hebrew Punic etc as well as Old Aramaic These inscriptions share an alphabet as shown in these 1903 comparison tables The old Aramaic period 850 to 612 BC saw the production and dispersal of inscriptions due to the rise of the Arameans as a major force in Ancient Near East Their language was adopted as an international language of diplomacy particularly during the late stages of the Neo Assyrian Empire as well as the spread of Aramaic speakers from Egypt to Mesopotamia The first known Aramaic inscription was the Carpentras Stela found in southern France in 1704 it was considered to be Phoenician text at the time Only 10 000 inscriptions in Phoenician Punic a Canaanite language are known such that Phoenician probably remains the worst transmitted and least known of all Semitic languages The only other substantial source for Phoenician Punic are the excerpts in Poenulus a play written by the Roman writer Plautus see Punic language Example for an analysis Within the corpus of inscriptions only 668 words have been attested including 321 hapax legomena words only attested a single time per Wolfgang Rollig s analysis in 1983 This compares to the Bible s 7 000 8 000 words and 1 500 hapax legomena in Biblical Hebrew The first published Phoenician Punic inscription was from the Cippi of Melqart found in 1694 in Malta the first published such inscription from the Phoenician homeland was the Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II published in 1855 Fewer than 2 000 inscriptions in Ancient Hebrew another Canaanite language are known of which the vast majority comprise just a single letter or word The first detailed Ancient Hebrew inscription published was the Royal Steward inscription found in 1870 List of notable inscriptionsThe inscriptions written in ancient Northwest Semitic script Canaanite and Aramaic have been catalogued into multiple corpora i e lists over the last two centuries The primary corpora to have been produced are as follows Hamaker Hendrik Arent 1828 Miscellanea Phoenicia sive Commentarii de rebus Phoenicum quibus inscriptiones multae lapidum ac nummorum nominaque propria hominum et locorum explicantur item Punicae gentis lingua et religiones passim illustrantur S et J Luchtmans Hamaker s review assessed 13 inscriptions Wilhelm Gesenius Scripturae Linguaeque Phoeniciae In the 1830s only approximately 80 inscriptions and 60 coins were known in the entire Phoenicio Punic corpus Schroder Paul in German 1869 Die phonizische sprache Entwurf Einer Grammatik Nebst Sprach und Schriftproben Halle Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses The first study of Phoenician grammar listed 332 texts known at the time CIS Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum the first section is focused on Phoenician Punic inscriptions 176 Phoenician inscriptions and 5982 Punic inscriptions KAI Kanaanaische und Aramaische Inschriften considered the gold standard for the last fifty years NSI George Albert Cooke 1903 Text book of North Semitic Inscriptions Moabite Hebrew Phoenician Aramaic Nabataean Palmyrene Jewish NE Mark Lidzbarski 1898 Handbuch der Nordsemitischen Epigraphik nebst ausgewahlten Inschriften I Text and II Plates KI Lidzbarski Mark 1907 Kanaanaische Inschriften moabitisch althebraisch phonizisch punisch A Topelmann TSSI Gibson J C L 1971 Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions I Hebrew and Moabite Inscriptions OUP Oxford ISBN 978 0 19 813159 5 Volume III Phoenician Inscriptions Including Inscriptions in the Mixed Dialect of Arslan Tash Oxford OUP 1982 ISBN 978 0 19 813199 1 TAD Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni 1986 2000 Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt Renz J Rollig W 1995 Handbuch der althebraischen Epigraphik in German Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft ISBN 978 3 534 12297 4 Jongeling K 2008 Handbook of Neo Punic Inscriptions Mohr Siebeck ISBN 978 3 16 149303 4 Sass Benjamin Finkelstein Israel 2013 The West Semitic Alphabetic Inscriptions Late Bronze II to Iron IIA Archeological Context Distribution and Chronology Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 2 2 149 doi 10 1628 219222713X13757034787838 The inscriptions listed below include those which are mentioned in multiple editions of the corpora above the numbers in the concordance column cross refer to the works above as well as newer inscriptions which have been published since the corpora above were published references provided individually They are ordered chronologically by date of their modern discovery illustrating the development of the study of ancient Semitic epigraphy Name Image Discovered No units Est Date Location found Current Location ConcordanceKAI CIS RES NE KI NSI TSSI Oth ref Punic Libyan bilinguals 1631 2 Dougga British Museum 100 101 433 c 93 52Cippi of Melqart 1694 2 100s BC Malta Louvre and National Museum of Archaeology Malta 47 I 122 425f 53 36Carpentras Stela 1704 1 Carpentras Bibliotheque Inguimbertine 269 II 141 448b1 75 II 24Pococke Kition inscriptions 1738 31 300s BC Cyprus Ashmolean Museum 33 35 I 11 46 57 85 420 4 19 23 27 28 13 16 18 19 III 35Benhisa inscription 1761 1 Malta Cabinet des Medailles I 124 426 3 55Phoenician Harpocrates statues 1770 1963 2 unknown National Archaeological Museum Madrid and British Museum 52 R 1507 424 44 III 37 38Nora Stone 1773 1 Sardinia Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cagliari 46 I 144 427c 60 41 III 11Athenian Greek Phoenician inscriptions 1795 etc 18 Athens Piraeus British Museum Louvre National Archaeological Museum Athens Archaeological Museum of Piraeus 53 60 I 115 120 R 388 1215 424 1 3 425 1 5 45 52 32 35 III 40 41Tripolitania Punic inscriptions 1806 Leptis Magna Breviglieri other 118 132 R 662 434 B aElephantine papyri and ostraca 1815 1945 300s BC Elephantine various 270 271 II 137 139 154 155 73 74 II 26 28Mdina steles 1816 2 Malta National Museum of Archaeology Malta 61 I 123A B 426 2 54 37 III 21 22Carthaginian tombstones 1817 onwards Carthage Carthage National Museum others 85 various 74Humbert Punic inscriptions 1817 5 Carthage Rijksmuseum van Oudheden I 240 431 9Hamaker Punic inscriptions 1823 3 Carthage Rijksmuseum van Oudheden I 173 I 440 432 16Turin Aramaic Papyrus 1823 24 1 Museo Egizio II 144Blacas papyrus 1825 1 Saqqara British Library II 145 76Falbe Punic inscriptions 1831 3 Carthage Copehagen University museum British Museum I 199 431 10 75Limyra bilingual 1840 1 Limyra 262 II 109 446bAbu Simbel Phoenician graffiti 1842 Abu Simbel in situ I 111 113 423b 43Ain Nechma inscriptions 1843 40 Guelma Louvre 166 169 437 58Kellia inscription 1844 1 Cyprus 36 I 47 420 5 24 17Marseille Tariff 1845 1 300s BC Marseille Musee d archeologie mediterraneenne 69 I 165 428 63 42Nimrud ivory inscriptions 1845 1961 Nimrud British Museum I 6Assyrian lion weights 1845 1860 800 500 BC Nimrud Abydos Hellespont British Museum Louvre 263 II 1 14 108 446c 66 67Phoenician metal bowls 1849 onwards c 5 10 700s BC Nimrud Cyprus Italy and others various I 164 II 46 49 III 19Anat Athena bilingual 1850 1 312 BCE Cyprus in situ 42 I 95 R 1515 422 1 35 28Bourgade inscriptions 1852 c 40 Carthage and wider Tunisia 133 135 436 3 12 54Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II 1855 1 c 525 BC Sidon Louvre 14 I 3 R 1506 417 2 7 5 III 28Gozo stele 1855 1 Malta Gozo Museum of Archaeology 62 I 132 426 4 56 38Serapeum Offering Table 1855 1 400 BC Saqqara Louvre 268 II 123 448a2 72Cirta steles 1857 61 1875 1950 c 1 000 300 100BCE Constantine Musee national Cirta 102 116 162 164 R 327 334 339 1544 433 1 9 and 434 10 12 94 99 51Carthage Tariff 1856 58 1 300 BC Carthage British Museum 74 I 167 429b 66 43Son of Baalshillek marble base 1856 58 1 Carthage British Museum 84 I 178 430 7 73Carthage tower model 1856 58 1 Carthage British Museum I 181 432 14 48Bodashtart inscriptions 1858 1900 2 22 24 300s BC Sidon Louvre and Museum of the Ancient Orient 15 16 I 4 R 766 767 8 10 6 Appendix IKition Resheph pillars 1860 2 341 BC Cyprus Louvre 32 I 10 88 420 1 18 30 12 23Ankh Hapy stele 1860 1 525 404 BCE unknown Vatican Museums 272 II 142 448b2 II 7Pauli Gerrei trilingual inscription 1861 1 Sardinia Turin Archaeology Museum 66 I 143 427b 59 40Baalshamin inscription 1861 1 132 BC Umm al Amad Louvre 18 I 7 418 d 12 9Phoenician sun dial 1860 1945 1 Umm al Amad National Museum of Beirut I 9Umm al Amad votive inscription 1861 1 Umm al Amad Lebanon Louvre I 8 419 2 13Cesnola Phoenician inscriptions 1865 71 28 Kition Metropolitan Museum of Art I 14 39 RES 1521 34Khaznadar inscriptions 1866 69 c 120 Carthage Bardo National Museum Tunis Louvre 88 various 431 11 13 431 15 82 84Hadrumetum Punic inscriptions 1867 1946 12 Sousse Sousse Archaeological Museum the Louvre and the Maison mediterraneenne des Sciences de l homme 97 99 432 1 3 91 92Mesha Stele 1868 1 Dhiban Louvre 181 415 1 1 I 16Abydos graffiti 1868 Abydos in situ 49 I 99 110 R 1302ff 423a 38 42 31Idalion bilingual and Idalion Temple inscriptions 1869 6 391 254 BC Idalion Cyprus British Museum 38 40 I 89 94 421 1 3 31 33 24 27 III 34Yehawmilk Stele 1869 1 c 450 425 BCE Byblos Louvre 10 I 1 416 5 3 III 25Tharros Punic inscriptions 1870 14 Sardinia Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cagliari Museo nazionale archeologico ed etnografico G A Sanna 67 I 153 161 61 62Royal Steward inscription 1870 1 Jerusalem British Museum 191 I 8Carthaginian slaughterhouse inscription 1871 1 Carthage British Museum 80 I 175 430 4 68 46Carthaginian mother goddess inscription 1871 1 Carthage 83 I 177 430 6 72 47Carthage Festival Offering inscription 1872 1 300 BC Carthage Turin Archaeology Museum 76 I 166 430 3 67 44Wilmanns Neopunic inscriptions 1873 74 5 Tunisia Louvre and Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 139 142 159 435 2 437a 53 55Pricot de Sainte Marie steles 1874 75 gt 2 000 Carthage Bibliotheque nationale de France Louvre 86 87 I c 200 c 2000 76 80 49Cherchell Neopunic inscriptions 1875 1882 2 Cherchell Louvre 161 439 2 56 57Bashamem inscription 1877 1 200 BC Sardinia Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cagliari 64 I 139 427a 58 39Baal Lebanon inscription 1877 1 700s BC Cyprus Cabinet des Medailles 31 I 5 419 17 11 III 17Saqqara Aramaic Stele 1877 1 482 BC Saqqara destroyed 267 II 122 448a1 71 II 23Tayma stones 1878 1884 21 300s 400s BC Tayma Louvre 228 230 II 113 115 447 1 3 69 70 II 30Kition Tariffs 1879 2 300s BC Cyprus British Museum 37 I 86A B 87 29 20 III 33Adadnadinakhe bricks 1880s 20 300 100 BC Girsu Louvre Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin II 72 446cSiloam inscription 1880 1 Jerusalem Museum of the Ancient Orient 189 3 2 I 7Sant Antioco bilingual 1881 1 Sardinia Museo archeologico comunale Ferruccio Barreca 172 I 149 434 1 100 60Palmyra Tariff 1881 1 100s CE Palmyra Hermitage MuseumOsorkon Bust 1881 1 c 920 BC Byblos Louvre 6 III 8Pierides Kition inscriptions 1881 7 Cyprus Louvre 12 13 14 50 53 20 25 26 14Eshmun obelisk 1881 1 Cyprus British Museum I 44 420 2 21 15Persephone Punic stele 1881 1 Carthage Turin Archaeology Museum 82 I 176 71Lilybaeum stele 1882 1 Sicily Regional Archeological Museum Antonio Salinas 63 I 138 57Henchir Guergour Neopunic inscriptions 1882 Tunisia 143 144Guelaat Bou Sbaa Neopunic inscriptions 1884 Algeria 165Hegra Nabataean inscriptions 1884 85 Hegra II 197 334 78 93 IV 7 8Tyre Cistern inscription 1885 1 Tyre Louvre 418 c 8Tamassos bilinguals 1885 2 363 BC Tamassos Cyprus British Museum 41 R 1212 1213 421c 34 30Masub inscription 1885 1 222 BC Masub Louvre 19 R 1205 419e 16 10 III 31Tabnit sarcophagus 1887 1 500 BC Sidon Museum of the Ancient Orient 13 R 1202 417 1 6 4 III 27Panamuwa II inscription 1888 1 730s BC Sam al Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 215 442 62 II 14Madaba Nabataean Inscriptions 1889 1 37 CE Madaba Louvre and Vatican Museums II 196 96 IV 9Hadad Statue 1890 1 700s BC Sam al Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 214 440 2 61 II 13Abdmiskar cippus 1890 1 300 BCE Sidon Louvre 282 R 930 418 3 11 7Abdbaal the centurion inscription 1890s 1 near Tyre LouvreMaktar and Mididi inscriptions 1890s gt 150 Maktar and Mididi 145 158 R 161 181 2221 436 11 59a cBar Rakib inscriptions 1891 8 730s BC Sam al Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin and Museum of the Ancient Orient 216 221 443 444 63 II 15 17Neirab steles 1891 2 600s BC Al Nayrab Louvre 225 226 445 64 65 II 18 19Sariaydin inscription 1892 1 400 BC Sariaydin in situ 261 446a 68 II 35Larnakas tis Lapithou pedestal inscription 1893 1 275 BCE Cyprus Louvre 43 R 1211 422 2 36 29 III 36Kilamuwa Stela 1893 1 c 850 825 BCE Sam al Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 24 III 13Hasanbeyli inscription 1894 1 Hasanbeyli Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 23Kition Necropolis Phoenician inscriptions 1894 4 300s BC Cyprus British Museum Cyprus Museum Ashmolean Museum 34 R 1206 420 3 22 21 22Douimes medallion 1894 1 700 BCE Carthage Carthage National Museum 73 I 6057 R 5 429 1 70El Amrouni mausoleum 1894 1 Remada 117 435b 101Abiba l inscription 1895 1 c 940 930 BCE Byblos Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 5 R 505 III 7Arebsun inscriptions 1895 1 Afsin Museum of the Ancient Orient 264 R 1785Tortosa bomos inscription 1896 1 Tortosa Syria Louvre R 56El Osiris inscription 1896 1 Umm al Amad Louvre R 504Avignon Punic inscription 1897 1 Avignon Musee d archeologie mediterraneenne 70 R 360 64 III 181898 1 200 BC Carthage Carthage National Museum 81 I 3914 69 45Punic Tabella Defixionis 1899 1 200 BC Carthage Carthage National Museum 89 I 6068 R 18 1590 85 501899 Carthage Carthage National Museum 91 I 5991 R 1227 88Quintus Markius trilingual inscription 1899 1 middle of 1st century BC Henchir Alouin near Uthina Louvre R 79Farasa bilingual inscription 1900 1 In situ 265Phoenician Adoration steles 1900 1 Umm al Amad Lebanon Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Louvre R 250 R 307 14 15Banobal stele 1900 1 Memphis Egyptian Museum 48 R 1 235 371900 Bou Arada 140 R 6791901 Carthage 96 I 5988 R 183 1600Eshmun inscription 1901 1 Sidon Museum of the Ancient Orient R 297Sibbolet funeral inscription 1902 1 Carthage Carthage National Museum 92 I 5948 R 768 89Stele of Zakkur 1903 1 Tell Afis Louvre 202 II 5Villaricos Phoenician stele 1903 04 1 Villaricos National Archaeological Museum Madrid 65Assur ostracon and tablets 1903 1913 10 Assur Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 233 6 II 20Baal Hannon tomb inscription 1904 Carthage Carthage National Museum 90 I 5953 R 537 871905 Carthage Carthage National Museum 93 I 5950 R 553 901906 Carthage 77 I 3921Lake Sivan inscriptions 1906 Armenia 274 2751906 Carthage 95 R 786 1854Throne of Astarte 1907 1 Tyre Louvre and National Museum of Beirut 17 R 800 III 301907 1 Carthage 94 I 2992Gozne Boundary Stone 1907 1 Gozne 259 II 34Thinissut sanctuary inscription 1908 1 Bir Bouregba Nabeul Museum 137 R 942 1858Gezer calendar 1908 1 Gezer Museum of the Ancient Orient 182 R 1201 I 1Samaria Ostraca 1910 102 Sebastia Museum of the Ancient Orient 183 188 I 2 3Olbia pedestal 1911 1 Sardinia 68 R 1216Giardino Birocchi inscription 1912 1 Sardinia Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cagliari 65Sardis bilingual inscription 1912 1 394 BC Sardis Izmir Archaeological Museum 260Rhodes Phoenician Greek bilingual inscriptions 1914 68 3 300 200 BCE Rhodes Archaeological Museum of Rhodes 44 45 III 39Bur Tlelsa Neopunic inscription 1914 1 Tunisia 138Kesecek Koyu inscription 1915 1 Kesecek Koyu Peabody Museum of Natural History 258 II 33Aramaic Inscription of Taxila 1915 1 Taxila Taxila Museum 273Arwad bilingual 1916 1 Arwad LouvreZattara Neopunic inscriptions 1916 Algeria 171Mitsri genealogy inscription 1922 1 300s BCE Carthage 78 I 37781920 Carthage 75 I 3916KNMY s child sacrifice inscription 1922 1 Carthage 79 I 3785Ibiza Phoenician inscriptions 1923 Archaeological Museum of Alicante 72Ahiram Sarcophagus 1923 1 c 1000 BCE Byblos National Museum of Beirut 1 III 4Byblos Necropolis graffito 1923 1 c 1000 BCE Byblos in situ 2 III 5Byblos altar inscription 1923 1 200 100 BCE Byblos National Museum of Beirut 12Ophel ostracon 1924 1 Jerusalem Rockefeller Museum 190 I 9Phoenician arrowheads 1926 onwards c 70 11th century BCE various various 20 22 III p 6Ur Box inscription 1927 1 Ur British Museum 29 III 20Byblos bronze spatulas 1926 1932 1 Byblos National Museum of Beirut 3 III 1Abda sherd 1926 1932 1 c 900 BCE Byblos 8 III 10Son of Safatba al inscription 1926 1932 1 c 500 475 BCE Byblos National Museum of Beirut 9Batnoam sarcophagus 1926 1932 1 c 450 425 BCE Byblos National Museum of Beirut 11 III 26Sirte inscription 1928 1 Sirte 180Yehimilk inscription 1930 1 c 960 950 BCE Byblos Byblos Castle 4 III 6Sefire steles 1930 1956 3 As Safira National Museum of Damascus and National Museum of Beirut 222 224 227 II 8 9 22Arslan Tash ivory inscription 1931 1 Arslan Tash Louvre 232 II 2Hama graffiti 1931 38 Hama 203 213 II 6 I VPul i Darunteh Aramaic inscription 1932 1 c 260 BCE Afghanistan in situArslan Tash amulets 1933 2 Arslan Tash National Museum of Aleppo 27 III 23 24Tell Halaf inscription 1933 1 Tell Halaf destroyed 231 II 10Bithia inscription 1933 1 Sardinia 173Agrigentum inscription 1934 1 406 BCE Carthage 302 I 5510Lachish letters 1935 1 Tel Lachish British Museum and Israel Museum 192 199 I 12Safatba al inscription 1936 1 c 900 BCE Byblos National Museum of Beirut 7 III 9Hermopolis Aramaic papyri 1936 8 400s BC Hermopolis Cairo University Archaeological Museum II 27Phoenician papyrus letters 1937 1940 2 Cairo and Saqqara Egyptian Museum 50 51Melqart stele 1939 1 Bureij National Museum of Aleppo 201 II 1Honeyman inscription 1939 1 900 BCE Cyprus Cyprus Museum 30 III 12Stele of Serapeitis 1940 1 Armazi Georgian National Museum 276Jebel Massoudj Neopunic inscription 1940 1 Tunisia 141Adon Papyrus 1942 1 Saqqara Egyptian Museum 266 II 21Kilamuwa scepter 1943 1 Sam al 25 III 14Tel Qasile ostraca 1945 1946 2 Tel Qasile Israel Museum I 4Karatepe bilingual 1946 1 c 750 BCE Karatepe Karatepe Aslantas Open Air Museum 26 III 15Tel el Maskhuta silver bowls 1950s II 25Pumayyaton and Pnytarion s inscriptions 1950s 1 c 327 BC near Dromolaxia Cyprus Larnaca District Archaeological Museum n 1425 Byblos clay cone inscriptions 1950 2 1100 1000 BCE Byblos National Museum of Beirut III 2 3Carchemish Phoenician inscription 1950 1 Carchemish British Museum 28Hatran Aramaic inscriptions 1951 Hatra 237 257Djinet Neopunic inscriptions 1952 Algeria 1701952 600s BC Wadi Murabba at I 11KAI 136 Neopunic 1955 Tunisia 1361956 800s BC Tel Hazor I 5Al Jib jar handles 1956 1959 gt 60 700s BC Al Jib Jordan Archaeological Museum and the Penn Museum I 14Byblos marble inscription 1957 1 500 BCE Byblos National Museum of Beirut 280Hashub Inscription 1957 1 400s BCE Tel Zeton Old Jaffa Museum of AntiquitiesKubaba Aramaic inscription 1957 1 Bahadirli 278 II 36El Kerak Inscription 1958 1 Al Karak Jordan Archaeological Museum 306 I 17Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription 1958 1 Chil Zena National Museum of Afghanistan 279Yavne Yam ostracon 1960 1 Mesad Hashavyahu Israel Museum 200 I 10Arad ostraca 1960s gt 200 c 600 BC Tel Arad Bible Lands Museum I 13 II 31Temple of Antas Punic inscriptions 1960s Sardinia 299 3011960s Nebi Yunis Ashdod II 321960s 1 Tel Dan II 4Seville statue of Astarte 1960 1962 1 700 BCE Seville Archeological Museum of Seville 294 III 16Khirbet Beit Lei graffiti 1961 7 400s BC Khirbet Beit Lei Israel Museum I 15Amman Citadel Inscription 1961 1 Amman Jordan Archaeological Museum 3071961 Ein Gev II 3Cadiz Phoenician gold ring inscription 1961 Instituto Valencia of Don Juan 71Phoenician Sphinx inscription 1962 1 Umm al Amad National Museum of Beirut III 32Baalshillem Temple Boy 1963 1964 1 Sidon National Museum of Beirut 281 III 29Abydos Aramaic papyrus 1964 1 400s BC unknown National Archaeological Museum of Madrid II 29Pyrgi Tablets 1964 3 Pyrgi National Etruscan Museum 277 III 42Carthage Administration Inscription 1964 1 Carthage Carthage National Museum 303Luristan Aramaic inscriptions 1964 Luristan II 11 12Daskyleion steles 1965 Dascylium Museum of the Ancient Orient 318 II 37Mozia Punic inscriptions 1967 Sicily 296 298Deir Alla Inscription 1967 1 Deir Alla Jordan Archaeological Museum 312Grotta Regina Punic inscriptions 1969 Sicily 295Kition KAI 288 290 1970s 80s Kition 288 290Tekke Bowl Inscription Knossos 1970s 1 000s BCE Crete Heraklion Archaeological Museum X4346 291Aramaic Sustenance tablet 1970s 316Aramaic inscription of Laghman 1970 1 c 260 BCE Afghanistan in situAramaic Fugitive Decree 1971 Unknown 317Tel Siran inscription 1972 1 Amman Jordan Archaeological Museum 308Letoon trilingual 1973 1 Xanthos Fethiye Museum 319Aramaic inscription from al Mal 1973 7 6 BCTell Sheikh Hamad inscriptions 1978 1980s Tell Sheikh Hamad 313 314Hadad yith i bilingual inscription 1979 1 Tell Fekheriye National Museum of Damascus 309Ketef Hinnom scrolls 1979 2 650 587 BCE Jerusalem Israel Museum1980s Sarafand 285Cebel Ires Daǧi inscription 1980 1 Cebel Ires Daǧi Alanya Archaeological Museum 287Abdalonymos bilingual 1982 1 325 BCE Kos 292 he 1982 1 800 500 BCE Byzantine Spolia near the Southern Wall Israel MuseumHazael horse frontlet 1984 1 800 BCE Samos Archaeological Museum of Vathi 311Bukan inscription 1985 Bukan 320Ivriz inscription 1986 75 meter upstream from the Ivriz relief unpublishedBactria Aramaic documents 1993 2002 353 324 BCE Bactria Khalili CollectionsTel Dan Stele 1993 1 Tel Dan Israel Museum 310Tell Shiukh Fawqani inscription 1996 315Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription 1996 1 Tel Miqne Israel Museum 286Cinekoy inscription 1997 1 Cine Yuregir Adana Archaeology MuseumTablet De Geest 2000 1 200s CE Socotra in situZayit Stone 2005 1 c 900 BCE Tel ZayitKuttamuwa stele 2008 1 Sam al Gaziantep Archaeology MuseumKhirbet Qeiyafa ostracon 2009 1 c 1000 BCE Khirbet Qeiyafa Israel MuseumAtaruz altar inscriptions 2010 c 800 BCE Khirbat AtaruzIshbaal Inscription 2012 1020 980 BCE Khirbet QeiyafaKAI 283 Sidon 283KAI 284 Tyre 284Demetrias inscription Demetrias 293BibliographyRollig Wolfgang in German 1983 The Phoenician Language Remarks on the Present State of Research Atti del I Congresso Internazionale di Studi Fenici e Punici Vol 2 Rome pp 375 385 doi 10 11588 propylaeumdok 00001074 a href wiki Template Cite book title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link See alsoList of inscriptions in biblical archaeology Carthaginian tombstones Epigraphy Ancient Hebrew writingsReferencesLehmann Reinhard G in German 2013 Wilhelm Gesenius and the Rise of Phoenician Philology PDF Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 427 Berlin Boston De Gruyter 209 266 Archived from the original PDF on 2016 03 04 Retrieved 2015 04 08 Alas all these were either late or Punic and came from Cyprus from the ruins of Kition from Malta Sardinia Athens and Carthage but not yet from the Phoenician homeland The first Phoenician text as such was found as late as 1855 the Eshmunazor sarcophagus inscription from Sidon Turner William Wadden 1855 07 03 The Sidon Inscription p 259 Its interest is greater both on this account and as being the first inscription properly so called that has yet been found in Phoenicia proper which had previously furnished only some coins and an inscribed gem It is also the longest inscription hitherto discovered that of Marseilles which approaches it the nearest in the form of its characters the purity of its language and its extent consisting of but 21 lines and fragments of lines Kanaanaische und Aramaische Inschriften 1961 Seit dem Erscheinen von Mark Lidzbarskis Handbuch der Nordsemitischen Epigraphik 1898 und G A Cooke s Text Book of North Semitic Inscriptions 1903 ist es bis zum gegenwartigen Zeitpunkt nicht wieder unternommen worden das nordwestsemitische In schriftenmaterial gesammelt und kommentiert herauszugeben um es Forschern und Stu denten zuganglich zu machen Um diesem Desideratum mit Rucksicht auf die Bedurfnisse von Forschung und Lehre abzu helfen legen wir hiermit unter dem Titel Kanaanaische und aramaische Inschriften KAI eine Auswahl aus dem gesamten Bestande der einschlagigen Texte vor a href wiki Template Cite book title Template Cite book cite book a work ignored help Mark Woolmer ed Phoenician A Companion to Ancient Phoenicia A Companion to Ancient Phoenicia ed Mark Woolmer 4 Altogether the known Phoenician texts number nearly seven thousand The majority of these were collected in three volumes constituting the first part of the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum CIS begun in 1867 under the editorial direction of the famous French scholar Ernest Renan 1823 1892 continued by J B Chabot and concluded in 1962 by James G Fevrier The CIS corpus includes 176 Phoenician inscriptions and 5982 Punic inscriptions see below on these labels self published source Parker Heather Dana Davis Rollston Christopher A 2019 Teaching Epigraphy in the Digital Age In Hamidovic David Clivaz Claire Savant Sarah Bowen eds Ancient Manuscripts in Digital Culture pp 189 216 doi 10 1163 9789004399297 011 ISBN 978 90 04 39929 7 JSTOR 10 1163 j ctvrxk44t 14 S2CID 182624532 p 190 Of course Donner and Rollig s three volume handbook entitled KAI has been the gold standard for five decades now Suder Robert W 1984 Hebrew Inscriptions A Classified Bibliography Susquehanna University Press p 13 ISBN 978 0 941664 01 1 Doak Brian R 2019 08 26 The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean Oxford University Press p 223 ISBN 978 0 19 049934 1 Most estimates place it at around ten thousand texts Texts that are either formulaic or extremely short constitute the vast majority of the evidence Kaufman Stephen A 1986 The Pitfalls of Typology On the Early History of the Alphabet Hebrew Union College Annual 57 1 14 JSTOR 23507690 McCarter Jr P Kyle 1 January 1991 The Dialect of the Deir Alla Texts In Jacob Hoftijzer and Gerrit Van der Kooij ed The Balaam Text from Deir ʻAlla Re evaluated Proceedings of the International Symposium Held at Leiden 21 24 August 1989 BRILL pp 87 ISBN 90 04 09317 6 It may be appropriate to observe at this point that students of the Northwest Semitic languages seem to be becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the usefulness of the Canaanite Aramaic distinction for categorizing features found in texts from the Persian Period and earlier A careful reevaluation of the binary organization of the Northwest Semitic family seems now to be underway The study of the Deir Alla texts is one of the principal things prompting this reevaluation and this may be counted as one of the very positive results of our work on these texts the evidence of the Zakkur inscription is crucial because it shows that the breakdown is not along Aramaic Canaanite lines Instead the Deir Alla dialect sides with Hebrew Moabite and the language spoken by Zakkur the dialect of Hamath or neighboring Lu ath against Phoenician and the majority of Old Aramaic dialects KAUFMAN STEPHEN A 1985 המיון של הדיאלקטים השמיים הצפוניים מערביים מתקופת המקרא THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE NORTH WEST SEMITIC DIALECTS OF THE BIBLICAL PERIOD AND SOME IMPLICATIONS THEREOF Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies ט 41 57 JSTOR 23529398 The very term Canaanite is meaningful only vis a vis something else i e Aramaic and as we shall see each new epigraphic discovery of the early first millennium seems to contribute further evidence that the division between Canaanite and Aramaic cannot be traced back any distance into the second millennium and that the term Canaanite in a linguistic as opposed to an ethnic sense is irrelevant for the Late Bronze Age Ugaritic is a rather peripheral member of the Late Bronze Age proto Canaanite Aramaic dialect continuum a dead end branch of NW Semitic without known descendants Our inability to reach a universally acceptable decision on the classification of Ugaritic is by no means due only to our less than total knowledge of the language As witnessed by the case of the Ethiopian dialects studied by Hetzron even when we do have access to relatively complete information classification is by no means a certain thing How much more so then in the case of dialects attached in a few short broken inscriptions The dialect of ancient Samal has been the parade example of such a case within the NW Semitic realm Friedrich argued long and hard for its independent status of late however a consensus seems to have developed that Samalian is Aramaic albeit of an unusual variety The achievement of such a consensus is due in no small part to the ongoing recognition of the dialectal diversity within Aramaic at periods much earlier than previously considered a recognition largely due to the work of our main speaker Prof J C Greenfield When we tum to the dialect of the language of the plaster texts from Deir Alla however scholarly agreement is much less easy to perceive The texts were published as Aramaic or at least Aramaic with a question mark a classification to which other scholars have lent their support The savants of Jerusalem on the other hand seem to be agreed that the language of Deir Alla is Canaanite perhaps even Ammonite Now frankly I have never been much interested in classification My own approach has always been rather open ended If a new language appears in Gilead in the 8th century or so looks somewhat like Aramaic to its North Ammonite and Moabite to its South and Hebrew to its West that is to say it looks exactly like any rational person would expect it to look like and is clearly neither ancestor nor immediate descendant of any other known NW Semitic language that we know why not simply say it is Gileadite and be done with it Anyone can look at a map and see that Deir Alla is closer to Rabbat Ammon than it is to Damascus Samaria or Jerusalem but that doesn t a priori make it Ammonite Why must we try to squeeze new evidence into cubbyholes designed on the basis of old evidence Garr W Randall 2004 The Dialectal Continuum of Syria Palestine Dialect Geography of Syria Palestine 1000 586 B C E Eisenbrauns pp 205 ISBN 978 1 57506 091 0 Huehnergard John Pat El Na ama 2005 The Semitic Languages Oxon Routledge p 114 ISBN 0415057671 Gibson J C L 30 October 1975 Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions II Aramaic Inscriptions Including Inscriptions in the Dialect of Zenjirli OUP Oxford p 120 ISBN 978 0 19 813186 1 The Carpentras stele The famous funerary stele CIS ii 141 was the first Syrian Semitic inscr to become known in Europe being discovered in the early 18 cent it measures 0 35 m high by 0 33m broad and is housed in a museum at Carpentras in southern France Daniels Peter T 31 March 2020 The Decipherment of Ancient Near Eastern Languages In Rebecca Hasselbach Andee ed A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages John Wiley amp Sons pp 7 8 ISBN 978 1 119 19329 6 Barthelemy was not done On 13 November 1761 he interpreted the inscription on the Carpentras stela KAI 269 again going letter by letter but the only indication he gives of how he arrived at their values is that they were similar to the other Phoenician letters that were by now well known He includes a list of roots as realized in various languages and also shows that Coptic which he conjectured was the continuation of the earlier language of the hieroglyphs shares a variety of grammatical features with the languages listed above The name Semitic for those languages lay two decades in the future and the group Aramaic which from the list includes Syriac Chaldaean Jewish Aramaic and Palmyrene as well as the Carpentras stela seems to have been named only about 1810 though it was recognized somewhat earlier Daniels 1991 Lehmann Reinhard G 2013 Wilhelm Gesenius and the Rise of Phoenician Philology Biblische Exegese und hebraische Lexikographie pp 209 266 doi 10 1515 9783110267044 209 ISBN 978 3 11 026612 2 Quote Nearly two hundred years later the repertory of Phoenician Punic epigraphy counts about 10 000 inscriptions from throughout the Mediterranean and its environs Rollig 1983 Rollig 1983 The Phoenician Punic vocabulary attested to date amounts to some 668 words some of which occur frequently Among these are 321 hapax legomena and about 15 foreign or loan words In comparison with Hebrew with around 7000 8000 words and 1500 hapax legomena 8 the number is remarkable Ullendorff Edward 1971 Is Biblical Hebrew a Language Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London 34 2 241 255 doi 10 1017 S0041977X00129520 JSTOR 612690 S2CID 162745779 Lehmann Reinhard G 2013 Wilhelm Gesenius and the Rise of Phoenician Philology PDF Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 427 Berlin Boston Walter de Gruyter GmbH 210 and 257 ISBN 978 3 11 026612 2 Archived from the original PDF on 2016 03 04 Retrieved 2014 02 21 Soon thereafter at the end of the 17th century the abovementioned Ignazio di Costanzo was the first to report a Phoenician inscription and to consciously recognize Phoenician characters proper And just as the Melitensis prima inscription played a prominent part as the first ever published Phoenician inscription and remained the number one inscription in the Monumenta fig 8 it now became the specimen of authentic Phoenician script par excellence The Melitensis prima inscription of Marsa Scirocco Marsaxlokk had its lasting prominence as the palaeographic benchmark for the assumed or rather deduced classical Phoenician echtphonikische script Millard Alan 1993 Review of Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions Corpus and Concordance The Journal of Theological Studies 44 1 216 219 doi 10 1093 jts 44 1 216 JSTOR 23967100 every identifiable Hebrew inscription dated before 200 BC First ostraca graffiti and marks are grouped by provenance This section contains more than five hundred items over half of them ink written ostraca individual letters receipts memoranda and writing exercises The other inscriptions are names scratched on pots scribbles of various sorts which include couplets on the walls of tombs near Hebron and letters serving as fitters marks on ivories from Samaria The seals and seal impressions are set in the numerical sequence of Diringer and Vattioni 100 001 100 438 The pace of discovery since F Vattioni issued his last valuable list I sigilli ebraici III AnnaliAnnali dell Istituto Universitario Orientate di Napoli 38 1978 227 54 means the last seal entered by Davies is 100 900 The actual number of Hebrew seals and impressions is less than 900 because of the omission of those identified as non Hebrew which previous lists counted A further reduction follows when duplicate seal impressions from different sites are combined as cross references in the entries suggest The Corpus ends with Royal Stamps 105 001 025 the Imlk stamps Judah and Jerusalem Stamps and Coins 106 001 052 Other Official Stamps 107 001 Inscribed Weights 108 001 056 and Inscribed Measures 109 001 002 most seals have no known provenance they probably come from burials Even if the 900 seals are reduced by as much as one third 600 seals is still a very high total for the small states of Israel and Judah and most come from Judah It is about double the number of seals known inscribed in Aramaic a language written over a far wider area by officials of great empires as well as by private persons Graham I Davies J K Aitken 2004 Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions Corpus and Concordance Cambridge University Press p xi ISBN 978 0 521 82999 1 This sequel to my Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions includes mainly inscriptions about 750 of them which have been published in the past ten years The aim has been to cover all publications to the end of 2000 A relatively small number of the texts included here were published earlier but were missed in the preparation of AHI The large number of new texts is not due for the most part to fresh discoveries or regrettably to the publication of a number of inscriptions that were found in excavations before 1990 but to the publication of items held in private collections and museums AVIGAD N 1953 The Epitaph of a Royal Steward from Siloam Village Israel Exploration Journal 3 3 137 152 JSTOR 27924525 The inscription discussed here is in the words of its discoverer the first authentic specimen of Hebrew monumental epigraphy of the period of the Kings of Judah for it was discovered ten years before the Siloam tunnel inscription Now after its decipherment we may add that it is after the Moabite Stone and the Siloam tunnel inscription the third longest monumental inscription in Hebrew and the first known text of a Hebrew sepulchral inscription from the pre Exilic period Clermont Ganneau 1899 Archaeological Researches In Palestine 1873 1874 Vol 1 p 305 I may observe by the way that the discovery of these two texts was made long before that of the inscription in the tunnel and therefore though people in general do not seem to recognise this fact it was the first which enabled us to behold an authentic specimen of Hebrew monumental epigraphy of the period of the Kings of Judah Lehmann Reinhard G in German 2013 Wilhelm Gesenius and the Rise of Phoenician Philology PDF Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 427 Berlin Boston De Gruyter 240 Archived from the original PDF on 2016 03 04 Retrieved 2015 04 08 Basically its core consists of the comprehensive edition or re edition of 70 Phoenician and some more non Phoenician inscriptions However just to note the advances made in the nineteenth century it is noteworthy that Gesenius precursor Hamaker in his Miscellanea Phoenicia of 1828 had only 13 inscriptions at his disposal On the other hand only 30 years later the amount of Phoenician inscribed monuments had grown so enormously that Schroder in his compendium Die phonizische Sprache Entwurf einer Grammatik nebst Sprach und Schriftproben of 1869 could state that Gesenius knew only a quarter of the material Schroder had at hand himself Review of Wilhelm Gesenius s publications The Foreign Quarterly Review L Scott 1838 p 245 What is left consists of a few inscriptions and coins found principally not where we should a priori anticipate namely at the chief cities themselves but at their distant colonies even now there are not altogether more than about eighty inscriptions and sixty coins and those moreover scattered through the different museums of Europe Rollig 1983 This increase of textual material can be easily appreciated when one looks at the first independent grammar of Phoenician P SCHRODER S Die phonizische Sprache Entuurf einer Grammatik Halle 1869 which appeared just over 110 years ago There on pp 47 72 all the texts known at the time are listed 332 of them Today if we look at CIS Pars I the incompleteness of which we scarcely need mention we find 6068 texts Parker Heather Dana Davis Rollston Christopher A 2019 Teaching Epigraphy in the Digital Age In Hamidovic D Clivaz C Savant S eds Ancient Manuscripts in Digital Culture Visualisation Data Mining Communication Vol 3 Alessandra Marguerat Brill pp 189 216 ISBN 978 90 04 34673 4 JSTOR 10 1163 j ctvrxk44t 14 Of course Donner and Rollig s three volume handbook entitled KAI has been the gold standard for five decades now Bevan A A 1904 North Semitic Inscriptions The Journal of Theological Studies 5 18 281 284 doi 10 1093 jts os V 18 281 JSTOR 23949814 ICO Amadasi Guzzo Maria Giulia 1967 Le iscrizioni fenicie e puniche delle colonie in Occidente Studi semitici in Italian Istituto di studi del Vicino Oriente Universita Retrieved 2022 10 13 AO 4831 Moriggi Marco 2011 Phoenician and Punic Inscriptions in the Museo di Antichita di Torino Turin Italy Egitto e Vicino Oriente 34 81 94 JSTOR 24233436 See Commons Category Euting Nabataean inscriptions from Hegra Al Ula Clermont Ganneau Charles Simon 1897 Une inscription phenicienne de Tyr Comptes rendus des seances de l Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 41 4 347 349 doi 10 3406 crai 1897 71008 Twelve Arebsun steles Smirnow Y J 1895 Arbeiten der Abteilung fur klassische byzantinische und westeuropaische Altertumskunde Erstes Buch 1895 Journal de la societe russe d archeologie Zapisky Imperatorskoe Russkoe archeologicheskoe Obshchestvo Nlle serie 8 3 4 Petersburg 1896 444 446 Halevy 1 with image Clermont Ganneau Ch 1898 Inscription arameenne de Cappadoce Comptes rendus de l Academie des inscriptions et belles lettres 630 640 808 810 Andre Lemaire textes arameens d Anatolie d epoque perse 3 octobre 2000Clermont Ganneau Ch 1900 https archive org details RecueilDarchologieOrientaletome3 page n71 mode 2up view theater Inscription arameenne de Cappadoce Recueil d archeologie orientale III Paris 59 70 spec 69 70 Lemaire Andre a paraitre Les pierres et inscriptions arameennes d Arebsun Cappadoce Nouvel examen dans S Shaked A Netzer ed Irano Judaica IV Jerusalem Lidzbarski M 1900 1902 Aramaische Inschriften aus Kappadocien Ephemeris fur semitische Epigraphik I Giessen 59 74 319 326 spec 72 74 Marquart 1905 2 Teixidor Javier 1979 L inscription phenicienne de Tartous RES 56 Syria 56 1 2 Institut Francais du Proche Orient 145 151 doi 10 3406 syria 1979 6656 ISSN 0039 7946 JSTOR 4198182 Retrieved 2024 08 09 Dussaud Rene Voyage en Syrie Oct Nov 1896 Revue Archeologique 30 1897 p 332 336 Clermont Ganneau Deux statues pheniciennes a inscriptions Recueil d archeologie orientale 1903 p 373 Lidzbarski Ephemeris fur semitische Epigraphik II p 165 Berger Philippe Cagnat Rene Louis Victor 1899 L inscription trilingue d Henchir Alaouin Comptes rendus des seances de l Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 43 1 48 54 doi 10 3406 crai 1899 71329 Vassel Eusebe 1907 Notes sur quelques steles puniques Comptes rendus des seances de l Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 51 5 262 265 doi 10 3406 crai 1907 72083 Sola Sole Josep M 1951 52 La plaquette en bronze d Ibiza Semitica IV Paris 25 ff Sola Sole Josep M 1955 Inscripciones fenicias en la Peninsula Iberica Sefarad XV Madrid Barcelona 45ff Littmann Enno 1932 Punische Inschriften aus Ibiza Forschungen und Fortschritte Nachrichtenblatt der Deutschen Wissenschaft und Technik in German 8 179 Schmitz Philip C 1994 The Name Agrigentum in a Punic Inscription CIS I 5510 10 Journal of Near Eastern Studies 53 1 1 13 doi 10 1086 373651 JSTOR 545353 S2CID 161397507 Note sur l inscription punique d une borne limite decouverte en Tunisie Garbini Giovanni 1968 Note di Epigrafia Punica III Rivista degli studi orientali 43 1 Fabrizio Serra Editore Sapienza Universita di Roma 5 17 ISSN 0392 4866 JSTOR 41880004 Retrieved 2023 04 24 Honeyman A M 1960 Inscriptions from Cyprus Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 3 4 111 112 ISSN 0035 869X JSTOR 25202364 Series of articles in the journal Sumer Aggoula B Inventaire des inscriptions hatreennes Paris 1991 Beyer K Die aramaischen Inschriften aus Assur Ḥatra und dem ubrigen Ostmesopotamien datiert 44 v Chr bis 238 n Chr Gottingen 1998 Healey J Aramaic Inscriptions amp Documents of the Roman Period Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions Volume IV Oxford 2009 Jacob Kaplan 1958 The Excavation in Tell Abu Zeitun in 1957 Bulletin of the Israel Exploration Society in Hebrew 22 1 2 Israel Exploration Society 99 JSTOR 23730357 Dupont Sommer Andre 1961 Une inscription arameenne inedite de Cilicie et la deesse Kubaba Comptes rendus des seances de l Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in French 105 1 19 23 doi 10 3406 crai 1961 11248 ISSN 0065 0536 via PERSEE https base map polytheisms huma num fr source 1660 n 1 in Garbini G Le iscrizioni fenicie in R Zucca ed Il tempio del Sardus Pater ad Antas Rome 2019 67 86 Sola Sole Josep Maria 1961 La inscripcion punica Hispania Sefarad in Spanish 21 2 Instituto Arias Montano 251 256 Amadasi M G 1986 Scavi a Mozia le iscrizioni Collezione di studi fenici in Italian Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche p Numbers 23 24 31 Retrieved 2022 05 31 https base map polytheisms huma num fr source 1611 No 23 KAI 296 No 24 KAI 297 No 31 KAI 298 Amadasi Guzzo M G Scavi a Mozia Le iscrizioni Rome 1986 Bisi A M Amadasi M G 1969 Grotta Regina I Rapporto preliminare della Missione congiunta con la Soprintendenza alle antichita della Sicilia occidentale in Italian Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche p Number 38A Retrieved 2022 05 31 KAI 288 probably in the Cyprus museum Yon Marguerite Sznycer Maurice 1991 Une inscription phenicienne royale de Kition Chypre Comptes rendus des seances de l Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in French 135 4 PERSEE Program 791 823 doi 10 3406 crai 1991 15050 ISSN 0065 0536 https base map polytheisms huma num fr source 269 144 in Calvet Y Salles J F 1982 Kition Bamboula Kition dans les textes Testimonia litteraires et epigraphiques et Corpus des inscriptions in French Vol 5 Editions Recherche sur les civilisations ISBN 978 2 86538 292 7 Retrieved 2023 09 24 KAI 289 https base map polytheisms huma num fr source 29 A30 Three lines in Guzzo M G A Karageorghis V 1977 Fouilles de Kition Inscriptions pheniciennes in French Vol 3 Department of Antiquities Cyprus Retrieved 2023 09 24 1030 in Calvet Y Salles J F 1982 Kition Bamboula Kition dans les textes Testimonia litteraires et epigraphiques et Corpus des inscriptions in French Vol 5 Editions Recherche sur les civilisations ISBN 978 2 86538 292 7 Retrieved 2023 09 24 KAI 290 Three lines Cross Frank Moore 1980 Newly Found Inscriptions in Old Canaanite and Early Phoenician Scripts Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 238 15 17 doi 10 2307 1356511 ISSN 0003 097X JSTOR 1356511 S2CID 222343641 Bourogiannis Giorgos The Phoenician presence in the Aegean during the Early Iron Age Trade settlement and cultural interaction Rivista di Studi Fenici 46 2018 p 63 Sznycer Maurice 1979 L INSCRIPTION PHENICIENNE DE TEKKE PRES DE CNOSSOS Kadmos 18 1 doi 10 1515 kadm 1979 18 1 89 ISSN 0022 7498 Bordreuil Pierre Une tablette arameenne inedite de 635 av J C Sem 23 1973 95 102 pls I V Fales Frederick Mario Sulla tavoletta aramaica A O 25 341 AION 36 1976 541 47 Kaufman Stephen A An Assyro Aramaic egirtu sa Sulmu Pp 119 27 In Essays on the Ancient Near East in Memory of Jacob Joel Finkelstein Ellis M de Jong ed Hamden Ct Archon 1977 Wesselius J W A Document Concerning the Sustenance of a Mother by Her Sons AION 45 1985 506 8 Bhayro Siam 2008 The Aramaic Fugitive Decree A New Interpretation Aramaic Studies 6 1 Brill 1 15 doi 10 1163 147783508x371268 ISSN 1477 8351 S2CID 162356215 J W Wesselius The Aramaic Decree about Fugitives Reconsidered in E Talstra ed Narrative and Comment Contributions to Discourse Grammar and Biblical Hebrew presented to Wolfgang Schneider Amsterdam Societas Hebraica Amstelodamensis 1995 pp 199 209 p 201 TelShHa 3 and TelShHa 5 Pritchard J B The Tanit Inscription from Sarepta in H G Niemeyer ed Phonizier im Westen Madrider Beitrage 8 Mainz am Rhein 1982 83 92 Amadasi Guzzo M G Two Phoenician Inscriptions Carved in Ivory Again the Ur Box and the Sarepta Plaque Orientalia 59 1 1990 58 66 ERC MAP View Source 13 Ch Kantzia Greek inscription and Maurice Sznycer Phoenician inscription Archaiologikon Deltion 35 1980 1986 p 1 30 Naveh Joseph 1982 A Fragment of an Ancient Hebrew Inscription from the Ophel Israel Exploration Journal 32 4 195 198 ISSN 0021 2059 Sokoloff Michael 1999 The Old Aramaic Inscription from Bukan A Revised Interpretation Israel Exploration Journal 49 1 2 105 115 JSTOR 27926880 https base map polytheisms huma num fr source 2347 Lemaire A Une inscription arameenne du VIIIe s av J C trouvee a Bukan Azebaidjan Iranien Sudia Iranica 27 1998 15 30 Ivriz Monument Hittite Monuments Retrieved 2022 11 05 Yakubovich Ilya Hawkins J D 2015 Phoenician and Luwian in Early Iron Age Cilicia Anatolian Studies 65 49 doi 10 1017 S0066154615000010 ISSN 0066 1546 JSTOR 24878375 S2CID 162771440 FALES F M BACHELOT L ATTARDO E 1996 An Aramaic Tablet from Tell Shioukh Fawqani Syria An Aramaic Tablet from Tell Shioukh Fawqani Syria 46 81 121 INIST 2463380 Tekoglu Recai Lemaire Andre Ipek Ismet Kasim Tosun A 2000 La bilingue royale louvito phenicienne de Cinekoy Comptes rendus des seances de l Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 144 3 961 1007 doi 10 3406 crai 2000 16174 INIST 13488688 Yakubovich Ilya 2015 Phoenician and Luwian in Early Iron Age Cilicia Anatolian Studies 65 35 53 doi 10 1017 S0066154615000010 JSTOR 24878375 S2CID 162771440 ProQuest 1693847338 Schloen J David Fink Amir S 2009 New Excavations at Zincirli Hoyuk in Turkey Ancient Samʾal and the Discovery of an Inscribed Mortuary Stele Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 356 356 1 13 doi 10 1086 BASOR25609345 JSTOR 25609345 S2CID 164088482 Aaron Demsky 2012 An Iron Age IIA Alphabetic Writing Exercise from Khirbet Qeiyafa Israel Exploration Journal 62 2 Israel Exploration Society 186 199 JSTOR 43855624 Adam L Bean 2018 An inscribed altar from the Khirbat Ataruz Moabite sanctuary Levant 50 2 211 236 doi 10 1080 00758914 2019 1619971 S2CID 199266038 Yosef Garfinkel Mitka R Golub Haggai Misgav and Saar Ganor 2015 The ʾIsbaʿal Inscription from Khirbet Qeiyafa Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 373 373 The American Schools of Oriental Research 217 233 doi 10 5615 bullamerschoorie 373 0217 JSTOR 10 5615 bullamerschoorie 373 0217 S2CID 164971133 a href wiki Template Cite journal title Template Cite journal cite journal a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link KAI 283 15 legible lines left side damaged KAI 284 21 inscriptions few words