The Abishemu obelisk or the Abichemou obelisk is a 1.25 meter

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

obelisk dedicated to the

Phoenicia Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...

n king Abishemu I of

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 880 ...

. The obelisk is decorated with two lines of inscriptions in

Egyptian hieroglyphics Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1,00 ...

. It was created in c.1800 BCE, and was unearthed in the 1950s by

Maurice Dunand Maurice Dunand (4 March 1898 – 23 March 1987) was a prominent French archaeologist specializing in the ancient Near East, who served as director of the Mission Archéologique Française in Lebanon. Dunand excavated Byblos from 1924 to 1975, and ...

in the

Temple of the Obelisks The Temple of the Obelisks (french: Temple aux Obelisques, ar, معبد الأنصاب ''maebad al'ansab''), also known as the L-shaped Temple and Temple of Resheph was an important Bronze Age temple structure in the World Heritage Site of Byblo ...

. It is the world's third-oldest obelisk, and by far the oldest obelisk found outside Egypt. Although only approximately a dozen words long, the obelisk contains: * the name of one of the oldest known

kings of Byblos The Kings of Byblos were the rulers of Byblos, the ancient Phoenician city in what is now Lebanon. Scholars have pieced together the fragmented list from various archaeological finds since the 19th century. Early period * c.1800s BC Abichemou I ...

, Abishemu I * the earliest description of an

ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

later considered to be among the purported "

Sea Peoples The Sea Peoples are a hypothesized seafaring confederation that attacked ancient Egypt and other regions in the East Mediterranean prior to and during the Late Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 BCE).. Quote: "First coined in 1881 by the Fren ...

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...

as Kukunnis, son of Lukka" (in analysis of the Sea Peoples, Lukka have been proposed as "

Lycia Lycia (Lycian language, Lycian: 𐊗𐊕𐊐𐊎𐊆𐊖 ''Trm̃mis''; el, Λυκία, ; tr, Likya) was a state or nationality that flourished in Anatolia from 15–14th centuries BC (as Lukka) to 546 BC. It bordered the Mediterranean ...

ns". * a reference to "Herishef", considered by Dunand to be the Egyptian name of the Canaanite god

Resheph Resheph (also Reshef and many other variants, see below; phn, 𐤓‬𐤔‬𐤐‬, ''ršp''; Eblaite ''Rašap'', Egyptian ') was a deity associated with plague (or a personification of plague), either war or strong protection, and sometimes th ...

, and thus giving the alternate name "Temple of Resheph" for the

The obelisk is the only example of a complete obelisk with a true pyramidion found in the Temple of the Obelisks; most of the others were rough steles. It consists of a square

plinth A pedestal (from French ''piédestal'', Italian ''piedistallo'' 'foot of a stall') or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In c ...

at the bottom, a tapering shaft and with a

pyramidion A pyramidion (plural: pyramidia) is the uppermost piece or capstone of an Egyptian pyramid or obelisk. Speakers of the Ancient Egyptian language referred to pyramidia as ''benbenet'' and associated the pyramid as a whole with the sacred b ...

at the top.

Inscription

Transcribed:

mry Ḥr-š·f ḥꜣty-ʻ n Kpny ʼb-šmw wḥm ʻnḫ .. Kwkwn śꜣ Rwqq mꜣʻ ḫrw

Translated:

Beloved of
Arsaphes In Egyptian mythology, Heryshaf, or Hershef ( egy, ḥrj š f "He who is on His Lake"),Forty, Jo. ''Mythology: A Visual Encyclopedia'', Sterling Publishing Co., 2001, p. 84. transcribed in Greek as Harsaphes or Arsaphes ( grc-koi, Ἁρσαφ ...
lso translated Herishef Abishemu, prince of Byblos, renewed in life, his
..., Kukun, son of 'the Lycian' justified (i. e., deceased).

Notes

References

Editio princeps

, Fouilles de Byblos, volume 2, p. 878, no. 16980; and plate XXXII number 2

Secondary sources

* * *{{cite book, last=Münnich, first=Maciej M., title=The God Resheph in the Ancient Near East, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RiLoYwdLUekC&pg=PA121, year=2013, publisher=Mohr Siebeck, isbn=978-3-16-152491-2 18th-century BC works Byblos Ancient Egyptian obelisks

Phoenician steles Collections of the National Museum of Beirut

Inscription

See also

Notes

References

Editio princeps

Secondary sources