The Benhisa inscription, CIS I 124, is Punic funeral inscription found in Malta in 1761. It mentions the name Hannibal, which garnered significant scholarly interest. [1]
It is engraved on a block of stone measuring approximately 26 cm x 26 cm, containing four lines of which the end is missing (the left part was broken on its transfer to Paris). [1]
It was sent to Paris in 1810 and it remains in the Cabinet des Médailles of the National Library. [1]
The inscription was discovered in the region of Bengħisa (archaically spelt Benhisa), just south of Birżebbuġa, at the south-eastern tip of the island. It was found in a cave-vault with whitewashed walls, dug in a rock, the stone on which was engraved the text in Phoenician characters in a niche carved in the rock, in the interior part of the cave, where also lay a corpse, near which a lamp had been discovered. [1]
Multiple sketches were published: [1]
It does not appear in the Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften or Cooke's Text-Book of North-Semitic Inscriptions. [1]
Giovanni Francesco Abela (1582–1655) was a Maltese noble who in the early 17th century wrote an important work on Malta, Della Descrittione di Malta isola nel Mare Siciliano: con le sue antichità, ed altre notizie, "description of Malta, island in the Sicilian sea, with its antiquities, and other information".
Phoenician is an extinct Canaanite Semitic language originally spoken in the region surrounding the cities of Tyre and Sidon. Extensive Tyro-Sidonian trade and commercial dominance led to Phoenician becoming a lingua franca of the maritime Mediterranean during the Iron Age. The Phoenician alphabet spread to Greece during this period, where it became the source of all modern European scripts.
The sarcophagus ofEshmunazar II is a 6th-century BC sarcophagus unearthed in 1855 in the grounds of an ancient necropolis southeast of the city of Sidon, in modern-day Lebanon, that contained the body of Eshmunazar II, Phoenician King of Sidon. One of only three Ancient Egyptian sarcophagi found outside Egypt, with the other two belonging to Eshmunazar's father King Tabnit and to a woman, possibly Eshmunazar's mother Queen Amoashtart, it was likely carved in Egypt from local amphibolite, and captured as booty by the Sidonians during their participation in Cambyses II's conquest of Egypt in 525 BC. The sarcophagus has two sets of Phoenician inscriptions, one on its lid and a partial copy of it on the sarcophagus trough, around the curvature of the head. The lid inscription was of great significance upon its discovery as it was the first Phoenician language inscription to be discovered in Phoenicia proper and the most detailed Phoenician text ever found anywhere up to that point, and is today the second longest extant Phoenician inscription, after the Karatepe bilingual.
Żejtun is a city in the South Eastern Region of Malta, with a population of 11,218 in the end of 2016. Żejtun is traditionally known as Città Beland, a title conferred by the grandmaster of the Order of the Knights of Malta, Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim in 1797. Before that, the village was known as Casale Santa Caterina, named after its patron saint and parish titular.
The Punic religion, Carthaginian religion, or Western Phoenician religion in the western Mediterranean was a direct continuation of the Phoenician variety of the polytheistic ancient Canaanite religion. However, significant local differences developed over the centuries following the foundation of Carthage and other Punic communities elsewhere in North Africa, southern Spain, Sardinia, western Sicily, and Malta from the ninth century BC onward. After the conquest of these regions by the Roman Republic in the third and second centuries BC, Punic religious practices continued, surviving until the fourth century AD in some cases. As with most cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, Punic religion suffused their society and there was no stark distinction between religious and secular spheres. Sources on Punic religion are poor. There are no surviving literary sources and Punic religion is primarily reconstructed from inscriptions and archaeological evidence. An important sacred space in Punic religion appears to have been the large open air sanctuaries known as tophets in modern scholarship, in which urns containing the cremated bones of infants and animals were buried. There is a long-running scholarly debate about whether child sacrifice occurred at these locations, as suggested by Greco-Roman and biblical sources.
In epigraphy, a multilingual inscription is an inscription that includes the same text in two or more languages. A bilingual is an inscription that includes the same text in two languages. Multilingual inscriptions are important for the decipherment of ancient writing systems, and for the study of ancient languages with small or repetitive corpora.
Stefano Borgia was an Italian Cardinal, theologian, antiquarian, and historian.
The Cippi of Melqart are a pair of Phoenician marble cippi that were unearthed in Malta under undocumented circumstances and dated to the 2nd century BC. These are votive offerings to the god Melqart, and are inscribed in two languages, Ancient Greek and Phoenician, and in the two corresponding scripts, the Greek and the Phoenician alphabet. They were discovered in the late 17th century, and the identification of their inscription in a letter dated 1694 made them the first Phoenician writing to be identified and published in modern times. Because they present essentially the same text, the cippi provided the key to the modern understanding of the Phoenician language. In 1758, the French scholar Jean-Jacques Barthélémy relied on their inscription, which used 17 of the 22 letters of the Phoenician alphabet, to decipher the unknown language.
The Punic-Libyan bilingual inscriptions are two important ancient bilingual inscriptions dated to the 2nd century BC.
Ras ir-Raħeb, known also as Ras il-Knejjes is a scenic limestone promontory in north western Malta, close to the hamlet of Baħrija. The headland is located in the administrative area of the council of Rabat. Ras ir-Raħeb lies in the north western corner of the Rabat-Dingli-Mdina plateau, just off Fomm ir-Riħ Bay. It rises to 45 metres above sea level. The peak allows views of the west coast of the island, as far as the cliffs of Ta' Ċenċ in Gozo. A wide variety of vegetation grows on the headland, including large populations of esparto grass on the clay slopes in the area. The headland also serves as a navigational marker.
The Byblian royal inscriptions are five inscriptions from Byblos written in an early type of Phoenician script, in the order of some of the kings of Byblos, all of which were discovered in the early 20th century.
The Banca Giuratale, formerly also known as Banca dei Giurati, the Municipal Palace, the Palazzo della Città, Casa Città and the Consolato del Mare, is a public building in Valletta, Malta. It was built in the 18th century to house the city's administrative council, and it was subsequently used as the General Post Office and the Public Registry. The Banca Giuratale now houses the Ministry for the Economy,Enterprise and Strategic Projects, and it is officially known as Palazzo Zondadari.
Melite or Melita was an ancient city located on the site of present-day Mdina and Rabat, Malta. It started out as a Bronze Age settlement, which developed into a city called Maleth under the Phoenicians, and became the administrative centre of the island. The city fell to the Roman Republic in 218 BC, and it remained part of the Roman and later the Byzantine Empire until 870 AD, when it was captured and destroyed by the Aghlabids. The city was then rebuilt and renamed Medina, giving rise to the present name Mdina. It remained Malta's capital city until 1530.
The Forni della Signoria was a bakehouse in Valletta, Malta. It was constructed in the late 16th century by the Order of St John, and it consisted of a number of bakeries which produced bread for the inhabitants of Valletta and the surrounding area, as well as for the Order's garrison and navy.
Several epidemics from the plague struck Malta from the medieval era until 1945, claiming almost 20,000 victims in at least ten epidemics over 350 years. After the first epidemics, preventive measures were installed, including a very active lazaret which issued patents of non-contagion for many ships plying the Mediterranean.
The Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, also known as Northwest Semitic inscriptions, 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. 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.
Eshmunazar I was a priest of Astarte and the Phoenician King of Sidon. He was the founder of his namesake dynasty, and a vassal king of the Achaemenid Empire. Eshmunazar participated in the Neo-Babylonian campaigns against Egypt under the command of either Nebuchadnezzar II or Nabonidus. The Sidonian king is mentioned in the funerary inscriptions engraved on the royal sarcophagi of his son Tabnit I and his grandson Eshmunazar II. The monarch's name is also attested in the dedicatory temple inscriptions of his other grandson, King Bodashtart.
The Tripolitania Punic inscriptions are a number of Punic language inscriptions found in the region of Tripolitania – specifically its three classical cities of Leptis Magna, Sabratha and Oea (Tripoli), with the vast majority being found in Leptis Magna. The inscriptions have been found in various periods over the last two centuries, and were catalogued by Giorgio Levi Della Vida. A subset of the inscriptions feature in all the major corpuses of Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, notably as KAI 119-132.
The Tharros Punic inscriptions are a group of Punic inscriptions found at the archeological site of Tharros in Sardinia.
Palazzo Caccini is located in Florence at Borgo Pinti 31–33, on the corner of Via Nuova dei Caccini.