Four line Phoenician inscription on a marble block, found in autumn 1861 in Kition (today, part of Larnaca), and obtained by Demetrios Pierides.[6] The inscription mentions its date as year 21 of Pymiaton, the last king of Kition, i.e. in 336/7. The inscription is dedicated to Canaanite god Resheph.[7][8] The inscription is as follows:[9][10]
On the sixteenth day of the month of Bul, the year 21 of the reign of Pumayyaton, king of Citium,
Idalion and Temessus, son of king Milkyaton, king of Citium and Idalion. This altar
and two altar hearths are what was offered by bd', the priest of Resheph-of-the-arrow (ršp ḥṣ), the son of Yakon-
shalom, of the son of Eshmunadon, to his lord Resheph-of-the-arrow. May he bless (him)!
Seven line Phoenician inscription on a marble block, thought to have served as the base for a statue, as the upper face includes the holes which may have held the clamps for the feet of a statue.[11]
The provenance is unknown, and has been variously given as Idalion and Kition. It was found in 1860 in its secondary use in a mosque in Nicosia (20km north of ancient Idalion),[11] however Melchior de Vogüé wrote that "it had been brought from Larnaca" (where ancient Kition is located).[11]
The inscription mentions its date as year 6 of the reign of Milkyaton, king of Citium and Idalium, which is the year 387. The inscription is as follows:[9][12]
On the sixth day of the month of Pa..., the year 3 of the reign of Milkyaton, king of Citium and
Idalion, son of Baalrom. This is the statue offered and erected 'and' (by) [… Rashap-]
-yaton son of Izratiba'al, the royal interpreter, to his lord Melqart, (since) he he[ard (his) voice]…
Fulfilled this vow and fulfilled the intentions expressed in this vow by [… son of Rashap-yaton]
the royal interpreter… commissioned... and ... statues on the steps... commissioned...
Abd-Pummay and Abd-Melqart, two sons of Adoni-shemesh, of the son of Rashap-yaton, the [ro]yal interpreter, in the year 6
of the reign of Milkyaton, king of Citium and Idalion, since Melqart heard their voice. May he bless them.
It was discovered by Crusader historian Emmanuel Guillaume-Rey in Nicosia, where it had been brought from Larnaca and served as a mount at the door of the qadi. Guillaume-Rey had deposited at the French consulate, who sent it to the Louvre.[11][13]
↑ Levy 1864, p.5:"Das Erstere steht fest als Benennung von Citium, einer der neun Hauptstädte Cypern's, durch die Inschrift Athen, 2, 2"
↑ Vaux 1863, p.396: "M. Pierides was also fortunate enough to obtain one of two Phænician inscriptions recently found in Cyprus; the other fell to the lot of a French traveller, and is the least perfect, though the longest. The one in M. Pierides' possession was found last autumn in Larnaka. It consists of four lines, and is but little injured, the end of the first line only being wanting. The French one has once had seven lines; but it is now very indistinct. Both are in white marble, and record the name of Malek-Itan, King of Cittium (a town, in all probability, to be identified with the modern Larnaka). On M. Pierides' inscription, Thamas, a son of Malek-Itan, King of Cittium, is mentioned; and another name occurs—that of Ican-Salem, which I have not met with elsewhere, except on one of Mr. Davis's Carthaginian inscriptions which I am now editing for the British Museum."
1 2 3 4 de Vogüé 1867b, pp.114–120: "Ce bloc a servi de base à une statue; on voit encore sur la face supérieure les trous des crampons qui fixaient les pieds de l'idole. Il a été découvert par mon ami M. Guillaume Rey, à Nicosie, où il avait été porté de Larnaca el servait de montoir à la porte du cadi. M. Rey le fit déposer au consulat de France, où je le trouvai, le fis enlever et transporter à Paris: il est aujourd'hui au musée du Louvre."
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.
Idalion or Idalium was an ancient city in Cyprus, in modern Dali, Nicosia District. The city was founded on the copper trade in the 3rd millennium BC. Its name does not appear, however, on the renowned "Kition Stele", i.e., the Sargon Stele of 707 BC, but a little later on the Prism of Esarhaddon known as Niniveh A wherein the name is prefixed by the modifier URU (city) as URU.e-di-ʾi-il and in similar spellings in Ashurbanipal's annal while modified by KUR (land/kingdom).
Kition was an Ancient Greek city-kingdom on the southern coast of Cyprus, one of the Ten city-kingdoms of Cyprus. According to the text on the plaque closest to the excavation pit of the Kathari site, it was established in the 13th century BC by Greek (Achaean) settlers, after the Trojan War.
Eshmunazar II was the Phoenician king of Sidon. He was the grandson of Eshmunazar I, and a vassal king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. Eshmunazar II succeeded his father Tabnit I who ruled for a short time and died before the birth of his son. Tabnit I was succeeded by his sister-wife Amoashtart who ruled alone until Eshmunazar II's birth, and then acted as his regent until the time he would have reached majority. Eshmunazar II died prematurely at the age of 14. He was succeeded by his cousin Bodashtart.
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.
The Sargon Stele was found in the autumn of 1845 in Cyprus on the site of the former city-kingdom of Kition, in present-day Larnaca to the west of the old harbour of Kition on the archaeological site of Bamboula. The language on the stele is Assyrian Akkadian.
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.
Yatonmilk was a Phoenician King of Sidon, and a vassal to the Achaemenid king of kings Darius I.
The Bodashtart inscriptions are a well-known group of between 22 and 24 Phoenician inscriptions from the 6th century BC referring to King Bodashtart.
The Yehawmilk stele, de Clercq stele, or Byblos stele, also known as KAI 10 and CIS I 1, is a Phoenician inscription from c.450 BC found in Byblos at the end of Ernest Renan's Mission de Phénicie. Yehawmilk, king of Byblos, dedicated the stele to the city’s protective goddess Ba'alat Gebal.
The Pococke Kition inscriptions were a group of 31 Phoenician and 2 non-Phoenician inscriptions found in Cyprus and published by Richard Pococke in 1745. In describing Kition, Pococke wrote: "the walls seem to have been very strong, and in the foundations there have been found many stones, with inscriptions on them, in an unintelligible character, which I suppose, is the antient [sic] Phoenician..."
The Idalion bilingual is a bilingual Cypriot–Phoenician inscription found in 1869 in Dali, Cyprus. It was the key to the decipherment of the Cypriot syllabary, in the manner of the Rosetta Stone to hieroglyphs. The discovery of the inscription was first announced by Paul Schröder in May 1872. It is dated to 388 BCE. The Phoenician inscription is known as KAI 38 and CIS I 89.
The Tamassos bilinguals are a pair of bilingual Cypriot–Phoenician inscriptions on stone pedestals found in 1885 in Tamassos, Cyprus. It has been dated to 363 BC.
The Idalion Temple inscriptions are six Phoenician inscriptions found by Robert Hamilton Lang in his excavations at the Temple of Idalium in 1869, whose work there had been inspired by the discovery of the Idalion Tablet in 1850. The most famous of these inscriptions is known as the Idalion bilingual. The Phoenician inscriptions are known as KAI 38-40 and CIS I 89-94.
The Anat Athena bilingual is a late fourth century BCE bilingual Greek-Phoenician inscription on a rock-cut stone found in the outskirts of the village of Larnakas tis Lapithou, Cyprus. It was discovered just above the village, at the foot of a conical agger, 6m high and 40 meters in circumference. It was originally found in c.1850.
The Baalshamem inscription is a Phoenician inscription discovered in 1860–61 at Umm al-Amad, Lebanon, the longest of three inscriptions found there during Ernest Renan's Mission de Phénicie. All three inscriptions were found on the north side of the hill; this inscription was found in the foundation of one of the ruined houses covering the hill.
The Larnakas tis Lapithou pedestal inscription, also known as KAI 43 or RES 1211, is a sixteen-line Phoenician inscription on the pedestal of a now lost statue of a local Cypriote governor, Yatonbaal. It is on a piece of greyish marble, measuring 44 by 69 centimeters, found in 1893 by Émile Deschamps at the foot of a hill near the northeastern Cypriote village of Larnax-Lapithou, in a field strewn with ancient stones, "that local inhabitants use as building material".
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 Pierides Kition inscriptions are seven Phoenician inscriptions found in Kition by Demetrios Pierides in 1881 and acquired by the Louvre in 1885.
Pumayyaton and Pnytarion's inscriptions are two separated inscriptions, Phoenician and Greek, engraved on the same marble base which was found in Gdhi or Gai locality near Dromolaxia. About 3 hundred years after the first inscription, the Phoenician, was engraved, the base was turned upside down and the second inscription, in Greek, was engraved; the inscriptions have no connection and are not a bilingual inscription. Eventually, it was used as a press. It is now exhibited in Larnaca District Archaeological Museum.
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