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 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 ...

Hebrews The terms ''Hebrews'' (Hebrew: / , Modern: ' / ', Tiberian: ' / '; ISO 259-3: ' / ') and ''Hebrew people'' are mostly considered synonymous with the Semitic-speaking Israelites, especially in the pre-monarchic period when they were still ...

and Arameans. Semitic inscriptions may occur on stone slabs, pottery

ostraca An ostracon ( Greek: ''ostrakon'', plural ''ostraka'') is a piece of pottery, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In an archaeological or epigraphical context, ''ostraca'' refer to sherds or even small pieces of ...

, ornaments, and range from simple names to full texts. The older inscriptions form a Canaanite–

Aramaic 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 ...

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...

, exemplified by writings which scholars have struggled to fit into either category, such as the Stele of Zakkur and the Deir Alla Inscription. The Northwest Semitic languages are a language group that contains the Aramaic language, as well as the Canaanite languages including Phoenician and

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Languages

The

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 ...

period (850 to 612 BC) saw the production and dispersal of inscriptions due to the rise of the Arameans as a major force in

Ancient Near East The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ...

. Their language was adopted as an international language of diplomacy, particularly during the late stages of the

Neo-Assyrian Empire The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...

as well as the spread of Aramaic speakers from Egypt to Mesopotamia. The first known Aramaic inscription was the Carpentras Stela, found in southern France in 1704; it was considered to be Phoenician text at the time. Only 10,000 inscriptions in Phoenician-

Punic The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of t ...

, a Canaanite language, are known, such that "Phoenician probably remains the worst transmitted and least known of all Semitic languages." The only other substantial source for Phoenician-Punic are the excerpts in ''

Poenulus ''Poenulus'', also called ''The Little Carthaginian'' or ''The Little Punic Man'', is a Latin comedic play for the early Roman theatre by Titus Maccius Plautus, probably written between 195 and 189 BC. The play is noteworthy for containing text ...

'', a play written by the Roman writer

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus (; c. 254 – 184 BC), commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the ...

(see for an analysis). Within the corpus of inscriptions only 668 words have been attested, including 321 hapax legomena (words only attested a single time), per Wolfgang Röllig's analysis in 1983.Rollig, 1983, "The Phoenician-Punic vocabulary attested to date amounts to some 668 words, some of which occur frequently. Among these are 321 hapax legomena and about 15 foreign or loan words. In comparison with Hebrew with around 7000–8000 words and 1500 hapax legomena (8), the number is remarkable." This compares to the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

's 7000–8000 words and 1500 hapax legomena, in Biblical Hebrew. The first published Phoenician-Punic inscription was from the

Cippi of Melqart 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, Ancie ...

, found in 1694 in

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

; the first published such inscription from the Phoenician "homeland" was the

Eshmunazar II sarcophagus The Eshmunazar II sarcophagus is a 6th-century BC sarcophagus unearthed in 1855 in the "Phoenician Necropolis", a hypogeum (underground tomb) complex in the southern area of the city of Sidon in modern-day Lebanon. The sarcophagus was discov ...

published in 1855. Fewer than 2,000 inscriptions in Ancient Hebrew, another Canaanite language, are known, of which the vast majority comprise just a single letter or word. The first detailed Ancient Hebrew inscription published was the Royal Steward inscription, found in 1870.

List of notable inscriptions

The inscriptions written in ancient Northwest Semitic script ( Canaanite and

) have been catalogued into multiple

corpora Corpus is Latin for "body". It may refer to: Linguistics * Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts * Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files * Corpus linguistics, a branch of linguistics Music * ...

(i.e. lists) over the last two centuries. The primary corpora to have been produced are as follows: * : Hamaker's review assessed 13 inscriptions * In the 1830s, only approximately 80 inscriptions and 60 coins were known in the entire Phoenicio-Punic corpus * : The first study of Phoenician grammar, listed 332 texts known at the timeRollig, 1983, "This increase of textual material can be easily appreciated when one looks at the first independent grammar of Phoenician , P.SCHRODER'S Die phonizische Sprache Entuurf einer Grammatik, Halle 1869, which appeared just over 110 years ago. There on pp. 47–72 all the texts known at the time are listed — 332 of them. Today, if we look at CIS Pars I, the incompleteness of which we scarcely need mention, we find 6068 texts." * CIS:

Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum The ("Corpus of Semitic Inscriptions", abbreviated CIS) 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 de ...

; the first section is focused on Phoenician-Punic inscriptions (176 "Phoenician" inscriptions and 5982 "Punic" inscriptions) * KAI:

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 fir ...

, considered the "gold standard" for the last fifty years * NSI:

George Albert Cooke George Albert Cooke (26 November 18659 September 1939) was a British Anglican clergyman and academic. He held two senior chairs at the University of Oxford: Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture from 1908 to 1914, and Regius Pro ...

, 1903: * NE:

Mark Lidzbarski Mark Lidzbarski (born Abraham Mordechai Lidzbarski, Płock, Russian Empire, 7 January 1868 – Göttingen, 13 November 1928) was a Polish philologist, Semitist and translator of Mandaean texts. Early life and education Lidzbarski was born in Rus ...

, 1898: and * KI: * TSSI: Volume III. Phoenician Inscriptions, Including Inscriptions in the Mixed Dialect of Arslan Tash (Oxford: OUP, 1982; ). * * The inscriptions listed below include those which are mentioned in multiple editions of the corpora above (the numbers in the concordance column cross-refer to the works above), as well as newer inscriptions which have been published since the corpora above were published (references provided individually).

Bibliography

References

{{reflist Archaeological corpora Semitic languages Inscriptions by languages Phoenician inscriptions Phoenician-Punic studies

Languages

List of notable inscriptions

Bibliography

See also

References