The Punic language, also called Phoenicio-Punic or Carthaginian, is an extinct variety of the Phoenician language, a Canaanite language of the Northwest Semitic branch of the Semitic languages. An offshoot of the Phoenician language of coastal West Asia, it was principally spoken on the Mediterranean coast of Northwest Africa, the Iberian peninsula and several Mediterranean islands, such as Malta, Sicily, and Sardinia by the Punic people, or western Phoenicians, throughout classical antiquity, from the 8th century BC to the 6th century AD.
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.
Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften, or KAI, is the standard source for the original text of Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions not contained in the Hebrew Bible.
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.
The Marseille Tariff is a Punic language inscription from the third century BCE, found on two fragments of a stone in June 1845 at Marseille in Southern France. It is thought to have originally come from the temple of Baal-Saphon in Carthage. It is one of the earliest published inscriptions written in the Phoenician alphabet, and one of the longest ever found.
The Mdina steles are two Phoenician language inscriptions found near the city of Mdina, Malta, in 1816. The findspot is disputed; the oldest known description places it near the Tal-Virtù Church. The surviving stele is currently in the National Museum of Archaeology, Malta; the other stele has been considered lost for more than a century.
The Honeyman inscription, also known as the Archaic Cyprus inscription, is a seven-line Phoenician gravestone inscription found in Cyprus and first published in 1939. It is the oldest detailed Phoenician inscription found in Cyprus.
The Pauli Gerrei trilingual inscription is a trilingual Greek-Latin-Phoenician inscription on the base of a bronze column found in San Nicolò Gerrei in Sardinia in 1861. The stele was discovered by a notary named Michele Cappai, on the right side of the Strada statale 387 del Gerrei that descends towards Ballao.
The Batnoam inscription is a Phoenician inscription on a sarcophagus. It is dated to c. 450-425 BCE.
The Byblos bronze spatulas are a number bronze spatulas found in Byblos, two of which were inscribed. One contains a Phoenician inscription and one contains an inscription in the Byblos syllabary.
The Phoenician Adoration steles are a number of Phoenician and Punic steles depicting the adoration gesture (orans).
The Banobal stele is a Horus on the Crocodiles stele with a Phoenician graffiti inscription on a block of marble which served as a base for an Egyptian stele, found near the Pyramid of Unas in Memphis, Egypt in 1900. The inscription is known as KAI 48 or RES 1.
The Agrigentum inscription is a Punic inscription found in 1934 during the excavations led by Gabriel-Guillaume Lapeyre at "Salambo", the infant and children's cemetery (tophet) of Carthage, and published in 1942. It probably refers to military events in Sicily in 406 BCE.
Phoenician–Punic literature is literature written in Phoenician, the language of the ancient civilization of Phoenicia, or in the Punic language that developed from Phoenician and was used in Ancient Carthage. It is surrounded by an aura of mystery due to the few preserved remains. All that is left is a series of inscriptions, few of which are of a purely literary nature, coins, fragments of Sanchuniathon's History and Mago's Treaty, the Greek translation of the voyage of Hanno the Navigator and the Poenulus by Plautus.
The Pricot de Sainte-Marie steles are more than 2,000 Punic funerary steles found in Carthage near the ancient forum by French diplomat Jean-Baptiste Evariste Charles Pricot de Sainte-Marie in the 1870s. The find was dramatic both in the scale—the largest single discovery of Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions—and also due to the finds almost being lost in the sinking of the French ironclad Magenta at Toulon.
The Ain Nechma inscriptions, also known as the Guelma inscriptions are a number of Punic language inscriptions, first found in 1837 in the necropolis of Ain Nechma, in the Guelma Province of Algeria.
The Mitsri genealogy inscription, known as KAI 78 or CIS I 3778, is a votive stele from Carthage in the Punic language.
The KNMY inscription is an inscription in the Punic language from Carthage that is believed to record a so-called "molk" child sacrifice. The text is inscribed on a 55 cm high stela that was discovered in 1922.
The Sibbolet funeral inscription is a Punic language inscription found in 1902 at Carthage. It measures 20 by 7 cm and is currently held at the Carthage National Museum. It is known as KAI 92, CIS I 5948, or R 768.
The Persephone Punic stele is a marble bas-relief stele of the Greek deity Persephone above a short punic inscription.
