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Samalian Language
Samalian was a Semitic language spoken in Samʼal. Samalian is primarily known from three inscriptions, the Hadad Statue and the Panamuwa II inscription ( KAI 214–215), both unearthed in the late 19th century, and a third known as the Kuttamuwa stele, unearthed in 2008. Classification Among the Semitic languages, Samalian shows most similarities to Aramaic. It has been earlier often considered an outright early dialect of Aramaic, possibly influenced by Canaanite. Strong evidence is however absent, and Samalian is best considered an independent member of the Northwest Semitic group, or, together with the Deir Alla Inscription, a sister variety of Aramaic in an "Aramoid" or "Syrian" group. Linguistic features Features connecting Samalian with Aramaic include: * a change *n > ''r'' in the word ''br'' 'son', though this is attested only as a part of personal names and may not have been the native word. The same phenomenon appears also in a Phoenician text from Sam'al (the Ki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samʼal
Samal, also Yadiya or Zincirli Höyük, is an archaeological site located in the Anti-Taurus Mountains of modern Turkey's Gaziantep Province. It was founded at least as far back as the Early Bronze Age and thrived between 3000 and 2000 BC, and on the highest part of the upper mound was found a walled citadel of the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000–1600 BC).Chicago-Tubingen Expedition to Zincirli, (2018)"Site and Setting" The University of Chicago. New excavations revealed a monumental complex in the Middle Bronze Age II (ca. 1800–1700 BC), and another structure (Complex DD) that was destroyed in the mid to late 17th century BC, maybe by Hititte king Hattusili I. It was thought to have been abandoned during the Hittite and Mitanni periods, but excavations in 2021 season showed evidence of occupation during the Late Bronze Age in Hittite times (ca. 1600–1180 BC).Herrmann, Virginia R., et al., (2022)"Comparing Bronze and Iron Age Urbanism, Economy, and Environment in Zincirli, Tur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aramaic Languages
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in the ancient region of Syria. For over three thousand years, It is a sub-group of the Semitic languages. Aramaic varieties served as a language of public life and administration of ancient kingdoms and empires and also as a language of divine worship and religious study. Several modern varieties, namely the Neo-Aramaic languages, are still spoken in the present-day. The Aramaic languages belong to the Northwest group of the Semitic language family, which also includes the Canaanite languages such as Hebrew, Edomite, Moabite, and Phoenician, as well as Amorite and Ugaritic. Aramaic languages are written in the Aramaic alphabet, a descendant of the Phoenician alphabet, and the most prominent alphabet variant is the Syriac alphabet. The Ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Aramaic
Old Aramaic refers to the earliest stage of the Aramaic language, known from the Aramaic inscriptions discovered since the 19th century. Emerging as the language of the city-states of the Arameans in the Levant in the Early Iron Age, Old Aramaic was adopted as a ''lingua franca'', and in this role was inherited for official use by the Achaemenid Empire during classical antiquity. After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, local vernaculars became increasingly prominent, fanning the divergence of an Aramaic dialect continuum and the development of differing written standards. The language is considered to have given way to Middle Aramaic by the 3rd century (a conventional date is the rise of the Sasanian Empire in 224 AD). Ancient Aramaic "Ancient Aramaic" refers to the earliest known period of the language, from its origin until it becomes the ''lingua franca'' of the Fertile Crescent and Bahrain. It was the language of the Aramaean city-states of Damascus, Hamath and Arpad. Di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byblos
Byblos ( ; gr, Βύβλος), also known as Jbeil or Jubayl ( ar, جُبَيْل, Jubayl, locally ; phn, 𐤂𐤁𐤋, , probably ), is a city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. It is believed to have been first occupied between 8800 and 7000BC and continuously inhabited since 5000BC, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. During its history, Byblos was part of numerous civilizations, including Egyptian, Phoenician, Assyrian, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Fatimid, Genoese, Mamluk and Ottoman. The city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was in ancient Byblos that the Phoenician alphabet, likely the ancestor of the Greek, Latin and all other Western alphabets, was developed. Etymology Byblos appears as ''Kebny'' in Egyptian hieroglyphic records going back to the 4th-dynasty pharaoh Sneferu (BC) and as () in the Akkadian cuneiform Amarna letters to the 18th-dynasty pharaohs and IV. In the 1stmillenniumBC, its name appeared ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kilamuwa Stela
The Kilamuwa Stele is a 9th-century BC stele of King Kilamuwa, from the Kingdom of Bit-Gabbari. He claims to have succeeded where his ancestors had failed, in providing for his kingdom. The inscription is known as KAI 24. The Kilamuwa Stele was discovered in Sam'al during the 1888–1902 German Oriental Society expeditions led by Felix von Luschan and Robert Koldewey. At the time of its discovery, it was considered to be the only Phoenician text found in Sam'al (numerous Aramaic texts had been found) and the northernmost Phoenician text found in Syria. It is currently located in the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin. Description of the stele The stele is a 16-line text in the Phoenician language and written in an Old Aramaic form of the Phoenician alphabet. According to William F. Albright, in its script, it resembles very closely the Mesha Stele that is very important in biblical archaeology. King Kilamuwa is shown standing on the upper left and addressing four Mesopota ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deir Alla Inscription
The Deir 'Alla Inscription (or Bal'am Son of Be'or Inscription), known as KAI 312, was discovered during a 1967 excavation in Deir 'Alla, Jordan. It is currently at the Jordan Archaeological Museum. It is written in a peculiar Northwest Semitic dialect, and has provoked much debate among scholars and had a strong impact on the study of Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions. The excavation revealed a multiple-chamber structure that had been destroyed by an earthquake during the Persian period, on the wall of which was written a story relating visions of Bal'am, son of Be'or, a "seer of the gods", who may be the same Balaam mentioned in and in other passages of the Bible. The Deir Alla inscription describes Bal'am in a manner which differs from that given in the Book of Numbers. Bal'am's god is associated with the goddess Ashtar, a god named Shgr, and "Shaddayin" (שדין, perhaps meaning gods and goddesses). It also features the word " Elohin" (perhaps with different vowels, like "i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northwest Semitic
Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic language, Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite language, Amorite in the Middle Bronze Age. The oldest coherent texts are in Ugaritic language, Ugaritic, dating to the Late Bronze Age, which by the time of the Bronze Age collapse are joined by Old Aramaic, and by the Iron Age by Sutean language, Sutean and the Canaanite languages (Phoenician language, Phoenician/Punic language, Punic, Edomite language, Edomite, Moabite language, Moabite and Hebrew). The term was coined by Carl Brockelmann in 1908,-ṣṭ- in the Dt stem in Hebrew (hiṣṭaddēḳ ‘he declared himself righteous’) suggests backing rather than glottalization. The same assimilation is attested in Aramaic (yiṣṭabba ‘he will be moistened’). Grammar Nouns Three cases can be reconstructed for Proto-Northwest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canaanite Languages
The Canaanite languages, or Canaanite dialects, are one of the three subgroups of the Northwest Semitic languages, the others being Aramaic and Ugaritic, all originating in the Levant and Mesopotamia. They are attested in Canaanite inscriptions throughout the Levant, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the East Mediterranean, and after the founding of Carthage by Phoenician colonists, in coastal regions of North Africa and Iberian Peninsula also. Dialects have been labelled primarily with reference to Biblical geography: Hebrew ( Israelian, Judean/Biblical, Samaritan), Phoenician/Punic, Amorite, Ammonite, Philistine, Moabite, Sutean and Edomite; the dialects were all mutually intelligible, being no more differentiated than geographical varieties of Modern English. This family of languages has the distinction of being the first historically attested group of languages to use an alphabet, derived from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, to record their writings, as opposed to the far earlier ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kuttamuwa Stele
The Kuttamuwa stele is an 800-pound basalt funerary stele with an Aramaic inscription referring to Kuttamuwa, an 8th-century BC royal official. It was found in Sam'al, in southeastern Turkey, in 2008, by the Neubauer Expedition of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. Description The stele measures three feet tall and two feet wide. It was a stele for Kuttamuwa, an 8th-century BC royal official from Sam'al who ordered an inscribed stele, that was to be erected upon his death. Inscription The inscription requested that his mourners commemorate his life and his afterlife with feasts "for my soul that is in this stele." It is one of the earliest references in a Near East culture to a soul as a separate entity from the body. The translation of the stele. ""I am KTMW (Kuttamuwa), servant of Panamuwa, who commissioned for myself (this) stele while still living. I placed it in an eternal chamber and established a feast (at) this chamber: a bull for Hadad Qarpatalli, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1st Millennium BC
The 1st millennium BC, also known as the last millennium BC, was the period of time lasting from the years 1000 BC to 1 BC (10th to 1st centuries BC; in astronomy: JD – ). It encompasses the Iron Age in the Old World and sees the transition from the Ancient Near East to classical antiquity. World population roughly doubled over the course of the millennium, from about 100 million to about 200–250 million.Klein Goldewijk, K. , A. Beusen, M. de Vos and G. van Drecht (2011). The HYDE 3.1 spatially explicit database of human induced land use change over the past 12,000 years, Global Ecology and Biogeography20(1): 73–86. pbl.nl. Goldewijk et al. (2011) estimate 188 million as of AD 1, citing a literature range of 170 million (low) to 300 million (high). Out of the estimated 188M, 116M are estimated for Asia (East, South/Southeast and Central Asia, excluding Western Asia), 44M for Europe and the Near East, 15M for Africa (including Egypt and Roman North Africa), 12M for Me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kanaanäische Und Aramäische Inschriften
Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften (in English, Canaanite and Aramaic Inscriptions), or KAI, is the standard source for the original text of Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions not contained in the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. It was first published from 1960 to 1964 in three volumes by the German Orientalists Herbert Donner and Wolfgang Röllig, and has been updated in numerous subsequent editions. The work attempted to "integrate philology, palaeography and cultural history" in the commented re-editing of a selection of Canaanite and Aramaic Inscriptions, using the "pertinent source material for the Phoenician, Punic, Moabite, pre-exile-Hebrew and Ancient Aramaic cultures." Röllig and Donner had the support of William F. Albright in Baltimore, James Germain Février in Paris and Giorgio Levi Della Vida in Rome during the compilation of the first edition. Editions The 4th edition was published between 1966-69, and a 5th edition was published in 2002. However, the 5t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panamuwa II Inscription
The Panamuwa II inscription is a 9th-century BC stele of King Panamuwa II, from the Kingdom of Bit-Gabbari in Sam'al. It currently occupies a prominent position in the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin. The 23 line inscription was discovered in 1888 during the 1888-1902 German Oriental Society expeditions led by Felix von Luschan and Robert Koldewey. Similar to the Hadad Statue, the inscription is on the base of a pillar-shaped statue. It was written by Panamuwa II's son Bar Rakib in the Samalian language, considered to be on a dialect continuum between Phoenician and Aramaic. The inscription mentions Tiglath-Pileser III Tiglath-Pileser III (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "my trust belongs to the son of Ešarra"), was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 745 BC to his death in 727. One of the most prominent and historically significant Assyrian kings, Tig .... Text The text of the inscription below is presented in George Albert Cooke's 1903 "Text-book of North-Semit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
