The Persephone Punic stele is a marble bas-relief stele of the Greek deity Persephone above a short punic inscription. [1]
The stele is in the Turin Archaeology Museum, with inventory number 50782. The Punic inscription is known as KAI 82 and CIS I 176.
It was first published in 1881, although it had been in the Turin museum for several years prior. The museum's curator at the time - Ariodante Fabretti - sent material to Ernest Renan which Renan stated proved "that the monument entered the museum through the care of an Italian consul at La Goulette, and that, consequently, it comes from the ruins of Carthage." [2]
However, in 1988 Maria Giulia Amadasi Guzzo and Serena Maria Cecchini argued that it may in fact come from Sardinia, like many of the other Punic artefacts in the Turin Museum: "The formula used in the inscription is known, but is not the most common among Carthage inscriptions... [but] is on the contrary very widespread in Sardinia: it is the rule on the Nora Stone and appears in four examples at Sulcis, where the inscribed stelae are few and often fragmentary". [3]
The stele measures 37 x 20 x 7 cm. [1]
The image of Persephone includes a diadem on her head, covered by a headscarf, and she is holding a bouquet of flowers. It is framed by two Doric columns, below a triangular area containing a squatting panther with its head turned back. The right antefix has an eleven-leaf palmetto; the left hand side is broken.
The inscription has been read as follows: [4]
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.
M'hamed Hassine Fantar is a professor of Ancient History of Archeology and History of Religion at Tunis University.
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 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum is a collection of ancient inscriptions in Semitic languages produced since the end of 2nd millennium BC until the rise of Islam. It was published in Latin. In a note recovered after his death, Ernest Renan stated that: "Of all I have done, it is the Corpus I like the most."
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 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 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 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.
Carthaginian tombstones are Punic language-inscribed tombstones excavated from the city of Carthage over the last 200 years. The first such discoveries were published by Jean Emile Humbert in 1817, Hendrik Arent Hamaker in 1828 and Christian Tuxen Falbe in 1833.
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 Ankh-Hapy stele is an Egyptian-Aramaic stele dated to 525–404 BCE. It was first published in a letter from François Lenormant to Ernest Renan in the Journal asiatique; Lenormant had noticed the stele in the Vatican collections and had brought a cast from Rome in 1860. Lenormant considered the stele to be reminiscent of the Carpentras Stele.
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 Umm Al-Amad votive inscription is an ex-voto Phoenician inscription of two lines. Discovered during Ernest Renan's Mission de Phénicie in 1860–61, it was the second-longest of the three inscriptions found at Umm al-Amad. All three inscriptions were found on the north side of the hill.
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 Phoenician Adoration steles are a number of Phoenician and Punic steles depicting the adoration gesture (orans).
The Carthage Administration Inscription is an inscription in the Punic language, using the Phoenician alphabet, discovered on the archaeological site of Carthage in the 1960s and preserved in the National Museum of Carthage. It is known as KAI 303.
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 Tharros Punic inscriptions are a group of Punic inscriptions found at the archeological site of Tharros in Sardinia.
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.
La formule employée dans l'inscription est connue, mais n'est pas des plus courantes parmi les inscriptions de Carthage... La formule de la stèle C.I.S. I, 176, inconnue dans les inscriptions de Malte et de Sicile, est au contraire bien répandue en Sardaigne: elle est de règle sur les stèles inscrites de Nora; elle apparaît dans quatre exemples à Sulcis, où les stèles inscrites sont peu nombreuses et souvent fragmentaires et où un seul exemple mentionne la divinité: Tanit, sans parèdre, ce qui est très rare ailleurs.