Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius was a German orientalist, lexicographer, Christian Hebraist, Lutheran theologian, Biblical scholar and critic.
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 "Phoenician Necropolis", a hypogeum complex southeast of the city of Sidon in modern-day Lebanon. The sarcophagus was discovered by Alphonse Durighello, a treasure hunter engaged by Antoine-Aimé Péretié, the chancellor of the French consulate in Beirut. The sarcophagus was sold to Honoré de Luynes, a wealthy French nobleman and scholar, and was subsequently removed to the Louvre after the resolution of a legal dispute over its ownwership. The sarcophagus has two sets of Phoenician inscriptions, one on its lid and another on its trough, under the sarcophagus head. The inscription was of great significance upon its discovery as it was the first Phoenician language inscription to be discovered in Phoenicia proper, the most detailed Phoenician text ever found anywhere up to that point, and is today the second longest extant Phoenician inscription after the Karatepe biligual inscription.
The Paleo-Hebrew script, also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in inscriptions of Canaanite languages from the region of Southern Canaan, also known as biblical Israel and Judah. It is considered to be the script used to record the original texts of the Hebrew Bible due to its similarity to the Samaritan script, as the Talmud stated that the Hebrew ancient script was still used by the Samaritans. The Talmud described it as the "Libona'a script", translated by some as "Lebanon script". Use of the term "Paleo-Hebrew alphabet" is due to a 1954 suggestion by Solomon Birnbaum, who argued that "[t]o apply the term Phoenician [ancient Phoenicia or modern Lebanon being Northern Canaan] to the script of the Hebrews [ancient Israel-Judah or modern Israel/Palestine being Southern Canaan] is hardly suitable". The Paleo-Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets are two slight regional variants of the same script.
Phoenicianism is a form of Lebanese nationalism adopted by a section of Lebanese people, at the time of the creation of Greater Lebanon. It constitutes identification of the Lebanese people with the ancient Phoenicians.
The Ahiram sarcophagus was the sarcophagus of a Phoenician King of Byblos, discovered in 1923 by the French excavator Pierre Montet in tomb V of the royal necropolis of Byblos.
The Nora Stone or Nora Inscription is an ancient Phoenician inscribed stone found at Nora on the south coast of Sardinia in 1773. Though it was not discovered in its primary context, it has been dated by palaeographic methods to the late 9th century to early 8th century BCE and is still considered the oldest Phoenician inscription found anywhere outside of the Levant.
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.
Acholla also latinised as Achilla or Achulla, was a Roman-Berber city on the sea-coast in the ancient province of Africa Propria (Byzacena) in modern Tunisia. It was located little above the northern extremity of the Lesser Syrtis, and about 20 Greek miles south of Thapsus. It was a colony from the island of Melita (Malta), the people of which were colonists from Carthage. Under the Romans, it was a free city. In the African War, 46 BCE, it submitted to Julius Caesar, for whom it was held by Messius; and it was in vain besieged by the Pompeian commander Considius.
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 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 Carpentras Stele is a stele found at Carpentras in southern France in 1704 that contains the first published inscription written in the Phoenician alphabet, and the first ever identified as Aramaic. It remains in Carpentras, at the Bibliothèque Inguimbertine, in a "dark corner" on the first floor. Older Aramaic texts were found since the 9th century BC, but this one is the first Aramaic text to be published in Europe. It is known as KAI 269, CIS II 141 and TAD C20.5.
Josette Elayi-Escaich is a French antiquity historian, Phoenician and Near-Eastern history specialist, and honorary scholar at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). Elayi authored numerous archaeology and history works, and literary novels. She is well known to the French public through her novels and for her calls for reform and activism against the CNRS research policy bias. In 2007 Elayi was decorated Knight of the Legion of Honor by the French state.
Phoenicia was an ancient Semitic-speaking thalassocratic civilization that originated in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon. At its height between 1100 and 200 BC, Phoenician civilization spread across the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to the Iberian Peninsula.
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 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 Blacas papyri are two fragments of an Aramaic papyrus found in Saqqara in 1825. It is known as CIS II 145 and TAD C1.2.
The Turin Aramaic Papyrus, also known as Papyrus Taurinensis, is a fragment of an Aramaic papyrus found by Bernardino Drovetti in 1823–24. It is known as CIS II 144 and TAD A5.3. Although it contains just two lines, it is notable as the first published Aramaic inscription found in Egypt.
Eduard Friedrich Ferdinand Beer was a German orientalist, epigraphist and paleographer.
