Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions

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The Eshmunazar II sarcophagus was the first of this type of inscription found anywhere in the Levant (modern Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon and Syria).[1][2]

The Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, also known as Northwest Semitic inscriptions,[3] are the primary extra-Biblical source for understanding of the society and history 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.[4][5][6][7] 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.[8][9][10][11]

The Northwest Semitic languages are a language group that contains the Aramaic language, as well as the Canaanite languages including Phoenician and Hebrew.

Languages[]

Phoenician alphabet
Aramaic alphabet
This 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.[12] 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.[13][14]

Only 10,000 inscriptions in Phoenician-Punic, a Canaanite language, are known,[7][15] such that "Phoenician probably remains the worst transmitted and least known of all Semitic languages."[16] The only other substantial source for Phoenician-Punic are the excerpts in Poenulus, a play written by the Roman writer Plautus.[7] 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.[17] This compares to the Bible's 7000–8000 words and 1500 hapax legomena, in Biblical Hebrew.[17][18] The first published Phoenician-Punic inscription was from the Cippi of Melqart, found in 1694 in Malta;[19] the first published such inscription from the Phoenician "homeland" was the Eshmunazar II sarcophagus published in 1855.[1][2]

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.[20][21] The first detailed Ancient Hebrew inscription published was the Shebna inscription, found in 1870.[22][23]

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:

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).

Name Image Discovered Date Location Found Current Location Concordance
KAI CIS / RES NE KI NSI TSSI Ref.
Ahiram Sarcophagus An inscription 1923 850 BC Byblos National Museum of Beirut 1 III 4
Byblos Necropolis graffito An inscription 1922 Byblos in situ 2 III 5
Byblos spatula Byblos National Museum of Beirut 3 III 1
Yehimilk inscription An inscription 1930 Byblos Byblos Castle 4 III 6
Abiba’l inscription An inscription 1895 Byblos Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 5 R 505 III 7
Osorkon Bust An inscription 1881 900 BC Byblos Louvre 6 III 8
Safatba'al inscription An inscription 1936 Byblos National Museum of Beirut 7 III 9
Abda sherd graffito Byblos 8 III 10
Son of Shipitbaal inscription An inscription 400s BC Byblos National Museum of Beirut 9
Yehawmilk Stele An inscription 1869 400s BC Byblos Louvre 10 I 1 416 5 3 III 25
Batnoam inscription An inscription Byblos National Museum of Beirut 11 III 26
Byblos altar inscription Byblos 12
Tabnit sarcophagus An inscription 1887 500 BC Sidon Museum of the Ancient Orient 13 R 1202 417,1 6 4 III 27
Eshmunazar II sarcophagus An inscription 1855 Sidon Louvre 14 I 3, R 1506 417,2 7 5 III 28
Bodashtart inscriptions An inscription 1858, 1900-2 300s BC Sidon Louvre and Museum of the Ancient Orient 15–16 I 4, R 766, 767 8–9 6, Appendix I
Throne of Astarte An inscription 1907 Tyre Louvre and National Museum of Beirut 17 R 800 12 III 30
Baalshamin inscription An inscription 1864 132 BC Umm al-Amad Louvre 18 I 7 9
Masub inscription An inscription 1885 222 BC Masub Louvre 19 R 1205 419e 16 10 III 31
Phoenician arrowheads An inscription various 20–22 III p.6
Hasanbeyli inscription 1894 Hasanbeyli Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 23
Kilamuwa Stela An inscription 1893 Sam'al Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 24 III 13
Kilamuwa scepter Sam'al 25 III 14
Karatepe bilingual An inscription 1946 Karatepe Karatepe-Aslantaş Open-Air Museum 26 III 15
Arslan Tash amulets An inscription 1933 Arslan Tash National Museum of Aleppo 27 III 23
Carchemish Phoenician inscription An inscription 1950 Carchemish British Museum 28
Ur Box inscription An inscription 1927 Ur British Museum 29 III 20
Honeyman inscription An inscription 1939 900 BCE Cyprus Cyprus Museum 30 III 12
Baal Lebanon inscription An inscription 1877 700s BC Cyprus Cabinet des Médailles 31 I 5 419 17 11 III 17
An inscription 1860 341 BC Cyprus Louvre 32 I 10 420,1 18 12
Pococke Kition inscriptions An inscription 1738 300s BC Cyprus Ashmolean Museum 33, 35 I 11, 46 420,4 19, 23 13, 16 III 35
Kition Necropolis Phoenician inscriptions An inscription 1894 300s BC Cyprus British Museum 34 R 1206 420,3 22 21
Kellia inscription An inscription 1844 Cyprus 36 I 47 420,5 24 17
Kition Tariffs An inscription 1879 300s BC Cyprus British Museum 37 I 86A-B 29 20 III 33
Idalion bilingual and Idalion Temple inscriptions An inscription 1869 254-391 BC Cyprus British Museum 38-40 I 89-94 421,1-3 31-33 24-27 III 34
Tamassos bilinguals An inscription 1885 363 BC Cyprus British Museum 41 R 1212-1213 421c 34 30
Anat Athena bilingual An inscription 1850 300s BC Cyprus 42 I 95, R 1515 422,1 35 28
1893 200 BC Cyprus Louvre 43 R 1211 422,2 36 29 III 36
Rhodes inscriptions Rhodes 44-45 III 39
Nora Stone An inscription 1773 Sardinia Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cagliari 46 I 144 427c 60 41 III 11
Cippi of Melqart An inscription 1694 100s BC Malta Louvre and National Museum of Archaeology, Malta 47 I 122 425f 53 36
Memphis inscription 1900 Memphis Egyptian Museum 48 R 1, 235 37
Abydos graffiti An set of inscriptions 1868 Abydos in situ 49 I 99–110, R 1302ff.
Madrid inscription An inscription unknown 52 R 1507 424 44 III 37
Athenian Greek-Phoenician inscriptions An inscription 1795 etc 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
Mdina steles An inscription 1816 Malta National Museum of Archaeology, Malta 61 I 123A-B 426,2 54 37 III 21,22
Gozo stele An inscription 1855 Malta Gozo Museum of Archaeology 62 I 132 426,4 56 38
Lilybaeum stele An inscription 1882 Sicily Regional Archeological Museum Antonio Salinas 63 I 138 57
An inscription 1877 200 BC Sardinia Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cagliari 64 I 139 427a 58 39
Giardino Birocchi inscription An inscription Sardinia Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cagliari 65
Pauli Gerrei trilingual inscription An inscription 1861 Sardinia Turin Archaeology Museum 66 I 143 427b 59 40
An inscription 1870 Sardinia Museo nazionale archeologico ed etnografico G. A. Sanna 67 I 158 62
Sardinia 68 R 1216
Marseille Tariff An inscription 1844 300s BC Marseille Musée d'archéologie méditerranéenne 69 I 165 428 63 42
Avignon Punic inscription An inscription 1897 Avignon Musée d'archéologie méditerranéenne 70 R 360 64 III 18
Douïmès medallion An inscription 1894 700 BCE Carthage Carthage National Museum 73 I 6057, R 5 429,1 70
Carthage Tariff An inscription 1858 300 BC Carthage British Museum 74 I 167 429b 66 43
Carthage 75 I 3916
An inscription 1872 300 BC Carthage lost 76 I 166 430,3 67 44
Carthage 77 I 3921
An inscription Carthage 78 I 3778
An inscription Carthage 79 I 3785
An inscription 1871 Carthage British Museum 80 I 175 430,4 68 46
An inscription 1898 200 BC Carthage Carthage National Museum 81 I 3914 69 45
An inscription 1881 Carthage Turin Archaeology Museum 82 I 176 71
An inscription 1873 Carthage 83 I 177 430,6 72 47
An inscription 1860 Carthage British Museum 84 I 178 430,7 73
An inscription Carthage Carthage National Museum 85 I 184 74
An inscription 1874 Carthage 86 I 264 76
An inscription Carthage 87 I 221 80
An inscription Carthage 88 I 1885 83
Punic Tabella Defixionis An inscription 1899 200 BC Carthage Carthage National Museum 89 I 6068, R 18, 1590 85 50
An inscription 1904 Carthage Carthage National Museum 90 I 5953, R 537 87
1899 Carthage Carthage National Museum 91 I 5991, R 1227 88
An inscription 1902 Carthage Carthage National Museum 92 I 5948, R 768 89
An inscription 1905 Carthage Carthage National Museum 93 I 5950, R 553 90
An inscription Carthage 94 I 2992
Carthage 95 R 786, 1854
Carthage 96 I 5988, R 183, 1600
Euting Hadrumetum inscriptions An inscription 1867 Sousse 97–98 432,1–3 91–92
Punic-Libyan Inscription An inscription 1631 Dougga British Museum 100
Lazare Costa inscriptions An inscription 1875 300-200BCE Constantine 102–105 R 327, 334, 339, 1544 433,8 and 434,10 94–99 51
An inscription 1894 Remada 117 435b 101
Breviglieri 118 R 662
Bourgade inscriptions An inscription 1852 Carthage and wider Tunisia 133–135 436,3–12
Baal Hammon inscription An inscription 1908 Bir Bouregba 137 R 942, 1858
Bou Arada 140 R 679
An inscription 1873 Henchir Brigitta Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 142 435,2 53
Maktar and Mididi inscriptions An inscription 1890s Maktar and Mididi 145–158 R 161–181, 2221 436,11 59a-c
An inscription 1873 Altiburus Louvre 159 437a 55
An inscription 1870s Cherchell 161 439,2 57
Guelma inscriptions An inscription 1843 Guelma Louvre 166–169 437 58
Sant'Antioco bilingual An inscription 1881 Sardinia Museo archeologico comunale Ferruccio Barreca 172 I 149 434,1 100
Mesha Stele An inscription 1868 Dhiban Louvre 181 415f 1 1 I 16
Gezer calendar An inscription 1908 Gezer Museum of the Ancient Orient 182 R 1201 I 1
Samaria Ostraca An inscription 1910 Sebastia Museum of the Ancient Orient 183–188 I 2–3
Nimrud ivory inscriptions An inscription 1961 Nimrud I 6
Siloam inscription An inscription 1880 Jerusalem Museum of the Ancient Orient 189 3 2 I 7
Ophel ostracon An inscription 1924 Jerusalem Rockefeller Museum 190 I 9
Shebna inscription An inscription 1870 Shebna British Museum 191 I 8
Lachish letters An inscription 1935 Tel Lachish British Museum and Israel Museum 192–199 I 12
Yavne-Yam ostracon An inscription 1960 Mesad Hashavyahu Israel Museum 200 I 10
An inscription 1948-50 Tel Qasile I 4
1956 800s BC Tel Hazor I 5
1952 600s BC Wadi Murabba'at I 11
An inscription 1960s c.600 BC Tel Arad I 13
1956-59 700s BC Al Jib I 14
An inscription 1961 400s BC Khirbet Beit Lei I 15
Melqart stele An inscription 1939 Bureij National Museum of Aleppo 201 II 1
Stele of Zakkur An inscription 1903 Tell Afis Louvre 202 II 5
Hama graffiti 1931–38 Hama 203–213 II 6 I-V
Hadad Statue An inscription 1890 700s BC Sam'al Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 214 440-2 61 II 13
Panamuwa II inscription An inscription 1888 730s BC Sam'al Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 215 442 62 II 14
Bar-Rakib inscriptions An inscription 1891 730s BC Sam'al Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin and Museum of the Ancient Orient 216–221 443, 444 63 II 15–17
Sefire steles An inscription 1930–56 As-Safira National Museum of Damascus and National Museum of Beirut 222–224, 227 II 8–9, 22
Neirab steles An inscription 1891 600s BC Al-Nayrab Louvre 225–226 445 64–65 II 18–19
Tayma stones An inscription 1878–84 300s–400s BC Tayma Louvre 228–230 II 113–115 447,1–3 69–70 II 30
Tell Halaf inscription An inscription 1933 Tell Halaf destroyed 231 II 10
Arslan Tash ivory inscription An inscription 1931 Arslan Tash Louvre 232 II 2
Assur ostracon An inscription 1903-13 Assur Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 233 II 20
Kesecek Köyü inscription An inscription 1915 Kesecek Köyü Peabody Museum of Natural History 258 II 33
Gözne Boundary Stone An inscription 1907 Gözne 259 II 34
Sardis bilingual inscription An inscription 1912 394 BC Sardis İzmir Archaeological Museum 260
Sarıaydın inscription An inscription 1892 400 BC Sarıaydın in situ 261 446a 68 II 35
Limyra bilingual An inscription 1840 Limyra 262 II 109 446b
Abydos lion weight An inscription 1860 500 BC Abydos (Hellespont) British Museum 263 II 108 446c 67
Adon Papyrus An inscription 1942 Saqqara Egyptian Museum 266 II 21
Saqqara Aramaic Stele An inscription 1877 482 BC Saqqara destroyed 267 II 122 448a1 71 II 23
Serapeum Offering Table An inscription 1855 400 BC Saqqara Louvre 268 II 123 448a2 72
Carpentras Stela An inscription 1704 Carpentras Bibliothèque Inguimbertine 269 II 141 448b1 75 II 24
Elephantine papyri and ostraca An inscription 300s BC Elephantine Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin 270–271 II 137–139 73–74 II 26
Hermopolis Aramaic papyri An inscription 1936 400s BC Hermopolis Cairo University Archaeological Museum II 27
Padua Aramaic papyri An inscription 1936 400s BC unknown Musei Civici di Padova II 28
Abydos Aramaic papyrus An inscription 1964 400s BC unknown National Archaeological Museum of Madrid II 29
Blacas papyri An inscription Saqqara British Museum II 145 76
Ankh-Hapy stele An inscription 1860 525–404 BCE unknown Vatican Museums 272 II 142 448b2 II 7
Aramaic Inscription of Taxila An inscription 1915 Taxila Taxila Museum 273
Stele of Serapeitis An inscription 1940 Armazi Georgian National Museum 276
Pyrgi Tablets An inscription 1964 Pyrgi National Etruscan Museum 277 III 42
Bahadırlı 278 II 36
Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription An inscription 1958 Chil Zena National Museum of Afghanistan 279
Baalshillem Temple Boy An inscription 1963–64 Sidon National Museum of Beirut 281 III 29
Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription An inscription 1996 Tel Miqne Israel Museum 286
Çebel Ires Daǧı inscription An inscription 1980 Çebel Ires Daǧı Alanya Archaeological Museum 287
Tekke Bowl Inscription (Knossos) Crete 291
Hellenistic Greek-Phoenician bilingual Kos 292
Demetrias inscription Demetrias 293
Seville statue of Astarte An inscription 1960-62 700 BCE Seville Archeological Museum of Seville 294 III 16
Carthage 302 I 5510
Aedilian inscription An inscription 1964 Carthage Carthage National Museum 303
El-Kerak Inscription An inscription 1958 Al-Karak Jordan Archaeological Museum 306 I 17
Amman Citadel Inscription An inscription 1961 Amman Jordan Archaeological Museum 307
Tel Siran inscription An inscription 1972 Amman Jordan Archaeological Museum 308
Hadad-yith'i bilingual inscription An inscription 1979 Tell Fekheriye National Museum of Damascus 309
Tel Dan Stele An inscription 1993 Tel Dan Israel Museum 310
Deir Alla Inscription An inscription 1967 Deir Alla Jordan Archaeological Museum 312
Daskyleion steles An inscription 1965 Dascylium Museum of the Ancient Orient 318 II 37
Letoon trilingual An inscription 1973 Xanthos Fethiye Museum 319
Assyrian lion weights An inscription 1845 Nimrud British Museum II 1–14
Çineköy inscription An inscription 1997 Çine, Yüreğir Adana Archaeology Museum [28]
Kuttamuwa stele An inscription 2008 Sam'al Gaziantep Archaeology Museum [29]
Ataruz altar inscriptions 2010 c. 800 BCE Khirbat Ataruz [30]
Ishbaal Inscription כתובת אשבעל בן בדע.jpg 2012 1020–980 BCE Khirbet Qeiyafa [31]
Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon.jpg 2009 c. 1000 BCE Khirbet Qeiyafa [32]
Hashub Inscription Hashub inscription.svg 1957 400s BCE Tel Zeton Old Jaffa Museum of Antiquities [33]

Bibliography[]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Lehmann, Reinhard G. (2013). "Wilhelm Gesenius and the Rise of Phoenician Philology" (PDF). Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter. 427: 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.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b 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.
  3. ^ Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften. Worvort zur 1. Auflage, p.XI. 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
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b Mark Woolmer (ed.). Phoenician: A Companion to Ancient Phoenicia. p. 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).
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b Parker, Heather Dana Davis; Rollston, Christopher A. (2019). "9". In Hamidović, D.; Clivaz, C.; Savant, S. (eds.). Teaching Epigraphy in the Digital Age. Ancient Manuscripts in Digital Culture: Visualisation, Data Mining, Communication. 3. Alessandra Marguerat. LEIDEN; BOSTON: Brill. pp. 189–216. ISBN 9789004346734. 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
  6. ^ Suder, Robert W. (1984). Hebrew Inscriptions: A Classified Bibliography. Susquehanna University Press. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-941664-01-1.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b c 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.
  8. ^ KAUFMAN, S. (1986). The Pitfalls of Typology: On the Early History of the Alphabet. Hebrew Union College Annual, 57, 1–14. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23507690
  9. ^ 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.
  10. ^ KAUFMAN, Stephen A., 1985, THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE NORTH WEST SEMITIC DIALECTS OF THE BIBLICAL PERIOD AND SOME IMPLICATIONS THEREOF. Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies, 41–57. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/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?"
  11. ^ 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.
  12. ^ Huehnergard, John; Pat-El, Na’ama (2005). The Semitic Languages. Oxon: Routledge. p. 114. ISBN 0415057671.
  13. ^ 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.
  14. ^ 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)
  15. ^ Lehmann, Reinhard G. (2013). "Wilhelm Gesenius and the Rise of Phoenician Philology" (PDF). Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter. 427: 209–266. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-04-08. Quote: "Nearly two hundred years later the repertory of Phoenician-Punic epigraphy counts about 10.000 inscriptions from throughout the Mediterranean and its environs."
  16. ^ Rollig, 1983
  17. ^ Jump up to: a b 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."
  18. ^ Ullendorff, E. (1971). Is Biblical Hebrew a Language?. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 34. University of London. pp. 241–255. JSTOR 612690.
  19. ^ Lehmann, Reinhard G. (2013). "Wilhelm Gesenius and the Rise of Phoenician Philology" (PDF). Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH. 427: 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.
  20. ^ Millard, A. (1993), Reviewed Work: Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions. Corpus and Concordance by G. I. Davies, M. N. A. Bockmuehl, D. R. de Lacey, A. J. Poulter, The Journal of Theological Studies, 44(1), new series, 216–219: "...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.
  21. ^ 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.
  22. ^ Avigad, N. (1953). The Epitaph of a Royal Steward from Siloam Village. Israel Exploration Journal, 3(3), 137–152: "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."
  23. ^ 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."
  24. ^ Jump up to: a b c Lehmann, Reinhard G. (2013). "Wilhelm Gesenius and the Rise of Phoenician Philology" (PDF). Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft. Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter. 427: 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.
  25. ^ "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.
  26. ^ 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."
  27. ^ Jump up to: a b Bevan, A. (1904). NORTH-SEMITIC INSCRIPTIONS. The Journal of Theological Studies, 5(18), 281–284. Retrieved August 1, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/23949814
  28. ^ Tekoglu, R. & Lemaire, A. (2000). La bilingue royale louvito-phénicienne de Çineköy. Comptes rendus de l'Académie des inscriptions, et belleslettres, année 2000, 960–1006. Important additions to the interpretation of the Luwian version were made in I. Yakubovich, Phoenician and Luwian in Early Iron Age Cilicia, Anatolian Studies 65 (2015), pp. 40–44
  29. ^ Schloen, J., & Fink, A. (2009). New Excavations at Zincirli Höyük in Turkey (Ancient Samʾal) and the Discovery of an Inscribed Mortuary Stele. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, (356), 1–13. Retrieved September 16, 2020
  30. ^ 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.
  31. ^ Yosef Garfinkel, Mitka R. Golub, Haggai Misgav, and Saar Ganor (2015). "The ʾIšbaʿal Inscription from Khirbet Qeiyafa". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. The American Schools of Oriental Research. 373 (373): 217–233. doi:10.5615/bullamerschoorie.373.0217. JSTOR 10.5615/bullamerschoorie.373.0217. S2CID 164971133.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  32. ^ Aaron Demsky (2012). "An Iron Age IIA Alphabetic Writing Exercise from Khirbet Qeiyafa". Israel Exploration Journal. Israel Exploration Society. 62 (2): 186–199. JSTOR 43855624.
  33. ^ Jacob Kaplan (1958). "The Excavation in Tell Abu Zeitun in 1957". Bulletin of the Israel Exploration Society (in Hebrew). Israel Exploration Society. 22 (1/2): 99. JSTOR 23730357.
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