The Daskyleion steles are three marble steles discovered in 1958 in Dascylium, in northwest Turkey.
The Aramaic inscription is known as KAI 318. It is dated to the fifth century BCE. [1]
The inscription seems to be sepulchral. The text reads: [2] [1]
The inscription had originally been interpreted as a kind of "insurance project" set up by Elnap, presumably a merchant, for the safe passage of his caravans: [3]
The revised interpretation as a sepulchral monument is based on the iconography, the place where the stelae were found, and a more natural reading of the Aramaic [1] [4] (the problematic word HWMYTK in line 2 had originally been taken to be an Iranian loanword). [5]
Charles-Jean-Melchior de Vogüé was a French archaeologist, diplomat, and member of the Académie française in seat 18.
George Cœdès was a French scholar of southeast Asian archaeology and history.
The Sfire or Sefire steles are three 8th-century BCE basalt stelae containing Aramaic inscriptions discovered near Al-Safirah ("Sfire") near Aleppo, Syria. The Sefire treaty inscriptions are the three inscriptions on the steles; they are known as KAI 222-224. A fourth stele, possibly from Sfire, is known as KAI 227.
André Dupont-Sommer was a French semitologist. He specialized in the history of Judaism around the beginning of the Common Era, and especially the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was a graduate of the Sorbonne and he taught at various institutions in France including the Collége de France (1963–1971) where he held the chair of Hebrew and Aramaic.
Bodashtart was a Phoenician ruler, who reigned as King of Sidon, the grandson of King Eshmunazar I, and a vassal of the Achaemenid Empire. He succeeded his cousin Eshmunazar II to the throne of Sidon, and scholars believe that he was succeeded by his son and proclaimed heir Yatonmilk.
Samalian was a Semitic language spoken and first attested in Samʼal.
The Assyrian lion weights are a group of bronze statues of lions, discovered in archaeological excavations in or adjacent to ancient Assyria.
The Aramaic inscription of Taxila is an inscription on a piece of marble, originally belonging to an octagonal column, discovered by Sir John Marshall in 1915 at Taxila, British India. The inscription is written in Aramaic, probably by the Indian emperor Ashoka around 260 BCE, and often categorized as one of the Minor Rock Edicts. Since Aramaic was the official language of the Achaemenid empire, which disappeared in 330 BCE with the conquests of Alexander the Great, it seems that this inscription was addressed directly to the populations of this ancient empire still present in northwestern India, or to border populations for which Aramaic remained the normal communication language. The inscription is known as KAI 273.
The Melqart stele, also known as the Ben-Hadad or Bir-Hadad stele is an Aramaic stele which was created during the 9th century BCE and was discovered in 1939 in Roman ruins in Bureij Syria. The Old Aramaic inscription is known as KAI 201; its five lines reads:
“The stele which Bar-Had-
-ad, son of [...]
king of Aram, erected to his Lord Melqar-
-t, to whom he made a vow and who heard his voi-
-ce.”
The Neirab steles are two 8th-century BC steles with Aramaic inscriptions found in 1891 in Al-Nayrab near Aleppo, Syria. They are currently in the Louvre. They were discovered in 1891 and acquired by Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau for the Louvre on behalf of the Commission of the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum. The steles are made of black basalt, and the inscriptions note that they were funerary steles. The inscriptions are known as KAI 225 and KAI 226.
The Maktar and Mididi inscriptions are a number of Punic language inscriptions, found in the 1890s at Maktar and Mididi, Tunisia. A number of the most notable inscriptions have been collected in Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften, and are known as are known as KAI 145-158.
The Abydos graffiti is Phoenician and Aramaic graffiti found on the walls of the Temple of Seti I at Abydos, Egypt. The inscriptions are known as KAI 49, CIS I 99-110 and RES 1302ff.
The Tayma stones, also Teima stones, were a number of Aramaic inscriptions found in Tayma, now northern Saudi Arabia. The first four inscriptions were found in 1878 and published in 1884, and subsequently included in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum II as numbers 113-116. In 1972, ten further inscriptions were published, and in 1987 seven further inscriptions were published. Many of the inscriptions date to approximately the 5th and 6th centuries BCE.
The Cirta steles are almost 1,000 Punic funerary and votive steles found in Cirta in a cemetery located on a hill immediately south of the Salah Bey Viaduct.
The Adon Papyrus, also known as the Aramaic Saqqara Papyrus is an Aramaic papyrus found in 1942 at Saqqara. It was first published in 1948 by André Dupont-Sommer.
The Farasa bilingual inscription, originally known as the Zindji-Dérè or Zindji-Dara inscription, is a bilingual Greek-Aramaic inscription found along the Zamantı River outside Farasa, Cappadocia, known today as Çamlıca village in Yahyalı, Kayseri). It was identified in modern times by Anastasios Levidhis of the town of Zindji-Dérè, and first published in 1905 by Josef Markwart.
The Kilamuwa scepter or Kilamuwa sheath is an 9th-century BCE small gold object inscribed in Phoenician or Aramaic, which was found during the excavations of Zincirli in 1943. It was found in burned debris in a corridor at the front of the "Building of Kilamuwa".
Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt, often referred to as TAD or TADAE, is a four volume corpus of Aramaic inscriptions written during the period of ancient Egypt, written by Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni.
The Beisan steles are five Ancient Egyptian steles from the period of Seti I and Ramesses II discovered in what was then known as Beisan, Mandatory Palestine by Alan Rowe in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
The Egyptian Stelae in the Levant are the approximately 25 Ancient Egyptian stelae discovered in the Levant, today known as Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan. The most notable examples are the Stelae of Nahr el-Kalb and the Beisan steles.