The Byblos clay cones inscriptions are Phoenician inscriptions (TSSI III 2,3) on two clay cones discovered around 1950.
| Byblos clay cone inscriptions | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Material | Clay |
| Created | c. 1050 BC |
| Discovered | c. 1950 Byblos, Keserwan-Jbeil, Lebanon |
| Present location | Beirut, Beirut Governorate, Lebanon |
They were first published in Maurice Dunand's Fouilles de Byblos (volume II, 1954), but it was only twenty years later that their extremely old age was fully realized: they are now dated to the eleventh century BCE.[1]
They are currently at the National Museum of Beirut.
Text of the inscriptions
editThe two inscriptions are property marks. Both begin with a letter "L", i.e., the preposition la or li, meaning "(property) of", "(belonging) to". One inscription reads:
- L‘BDḤMN
- belonging to ‘Abd-Ḥammōn
The name Abd-Ḥammōn (literally, "servant of [the god Ba‘al]-Ḥammon") was quite common; in later times it is found in Greek letter inscriptions as Abdimon (Αβδημων, Αβδημουν, or Αβδυμων).[2]
The other inscription reads:
- L’Ḥ’ŠBBD (or L’Ḥ’MBBD)
- belonging to ’Aḥī’aš (or ’Aḥī’am), son of Bōdī
In the name ’Aḥī’aš/m the first part, aḥi-, is very common, its meaning is brother of ..., or my brother is ... The name Bōdī or Bōdō is also well documented (the element BD’- in proper names = in the hand of, in the service of [a god], Hebrew beyad-).[3]
Bibliography
edit- Christopher Rollston, "The Dating of the Early Royal Byblian Phoenician Inscriptions: A Response to Benjamin Sass." MAARAV 15 (2008): 57–93.
- Benjamin Mazar, The Phoenician Inscriptions from Byblos and the Evolution of the Phoenician-Hebrew Alphabet, in The Early Biblical Period: Historical Studies (S. Ahituv and B. A. Levine, eds., Jerusalem: IES, 1986 [original publication: 1946]): 231–247.
- William F. Albright, The Phoenician Inscriptions of the Tenth Century B.C. from Byblus, JAOS 67 (1947): 153–154.
References
edit- ^ F.M. Cross & P.K. McCarter, Jr., 'Two Archaic Inscriptions on Clay Objects from Byblos', in: Rivista di Studi Fenici 1 (1973) pp. 3-8, cited by: Cross, Frank Moore (2003). Leaves from an Epigrapher's Notebook: Collected Papers in Hebrew and West Semitic Palaeography and Epigraphy. Leiden: Brill. p. 336. ISBN 978-1-57506-911-1.
- ^ Krahmalkov, Charles R. (2000). Phoenician-Punic Dictionary. Leuven: Peeters / Departement Oosterse Studies. p. 355. ISBN 90-429-0770-3.
- ^ Krahmalkov, pp. 97-100.