The Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription, or simply the Ekron inscription, is a royal dedication inscription found in its primary context, in the ruins of a temple during the 1996 excavations of

Ekron Ekron (Philistine: 𐤏𐤒𐤓𐤍 ''*ʿAqārān'', , ), in the Hellenistic period known as Accaron () was at first a Canaanite, and later more famously a Philistine city, one of the five cities of the Philistine Pentapolis, located in pr ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

.Gitin, Dothan, and Naveh, 1997, p. 1 It is known as KAI 286. It is incised on a rectangular-shaped limestone block with five lines and 71 characters, and mentions Ekron, thus confirming the identification of the site, as well as five of its rulers, including Ikausu (

Achish Achish ( ''ʾāḵīš'', Philistine: 𐤀𐤊𐤉𐤔 *''ʾākayūš'', Akkadian: 𒄿𒅗𒌑𒋢 ''i-ka-ú-su'') is a name used in the Hebrew Bible for two Philistine rulers of Gath. It is perhaps only a general title of royalty, applicable ...

), son of Padi, who built the sanctuary. Padi and Ikausu are known as kings of Ekron from the late 8th- and 7th-century Neo-Assyrian Royal Annals.Gitin, Seymour (2003), Israelite and Philistine Cult and the Archaeological Record, in ''Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past'', p. 287, "Two of the five names of city's rulers mentioned in the inscription - Padi and Ikausu - appear in the Neo-Assyrian Annals as kings of ‘amqar(r)una, that is, Ekron, an Assyrian vassal city-state in the 7th century B.C.E. (Gitin 1995: 62). Padi is known from the Annals of Sennacherib in the context of the Assyrian king's 701 B.C.E. campaign, at the end of which he gave the towns of the defeated Judean King Hezekiah to Padi and others (Pritchard 1969: 287-88). Padi is also cited in a docket dated to 699 B.C.E., according to which he delivered a light talent of silver to Sennacherib (Fales and Postgate 1995: 21-22). Ikausu is listed as one of the 12 coastal kings who transported building materials to Nineveh for the palace of Esarhaddon (680-669 B.C.E.), and his name also appears in a list of kings who participated in Ashurbanipal's first campaign against Egypt in 667 B.C.E. (Pritchard 1969: 291, 294)." King Padi is mentioned in connection to events from the years 701 and 699 BC, King Ikausu about 673 and 667 BC, placing the date of the inscription firmly in the first half of the 7th century BC, and most likely in the second quarter of that century. It is the first connected body of text to be identified as "

Philistine Philistines (; Septuagint, LXX: ; ) were ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age in a confederation of city-states generally referred to as Philistia. There is compelling evidence to suggest that the Philist ...

", based on Ekron's identification as a Philistine city in the Bible (see and ). However, it is written in a northern Canaanite dialect similar to Phoenician and Old Byblian, such that its discoverers referred to it as "something of an enigma".

Discovery

The inscription was discovered in the

Albright Institute of Archaeological Research The W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR) is an archaeological research institution located in East Jerusalem. It is the oldest American research center for ancient Near Eastern studies in the Middle East. Founded in 1900 as t ...

Tel Miqne excavations of Ekron led by

Seymour Gitin Seymour Gitin (born 1936) is an American Archaeology, archaeologist specializing in ancient Israel, known for his excavations at Tel Miqne-Ekron. He was the director of the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR) in Jerusalem from 198 ...

and

Trude Dothan Trude Dothan (‎; 12 October 1922 – 28 January 2016) was a professor of archaeology at the Hebrew University, who focused on the Late Bronze and Iron Ages in the region, in particular in Philistine culture. Winner of the Israel Prize in Ar ...

. The inscription is one of the primary documents for establishing the chronology of events relating to the end of the late biblical period, especially a possible late history of the Philistines. The inscription has therefore been referred to as one of the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century in Israel.

Translation

The text is written from right-to-left in a style and dialect similar to Phoenician inscriptions from Byblos. It has been transcribed and translated as: ::𐤟𐤁𐤕𐤟𐤁𐤍𐤟𐤀𐤊𐤉𐤔𐤟𐤁𐤍𐤟𐤐𐤃𐤉𐤟𐤁𐤍 ::bt·bn·ʾkyš·bn·pdy·bn· ::(The) temple built by Achish, son of Padi, son of ::𐤉𐤎𐤃𐤟𐤁𐤍𐤟𐤀𐤃𐤀𐤟𐤁𐤍𐤟𐤉𐤏𐤓𐤟𐤔𐤓𐤏𐤒 ::ysd·bn·ʾdʾ·bn·yʿr·šrʿq ::Yasid, son of Ada, son of Ya'ir, ruler of Ek- ::𐤓𐤍𐤟𐤋𐤐𐤕 ��𐤄𐤟𐤀𐤃𐤕𐤄𐤟𐤕𐤁𐤓𐤊𐤄𐤟𐤅𐤕 ::rn·lpt ''yh·ʾdth·tbrkh·wt ::ron, for his lady, may she bless him, and pro- ::𐤟𐤔𐤌⸢𐤓⸣𐤄𐤟𐤅𐤕𐤀𐤓𐤊𐤟𐤉𐤌𐤄𐤟𐤅𐤕𐤁𐤓𐤊 ::šm⸢r⸣h·wtʾrk·ymh·wtbrk· ::-t cthim, and prolong his days, and bless ::𐤀⸣𐤓⸢𐤑⸣𐤄⸣ ::⸢ʾ⸣r⸢ṣ⸣h ::his a

Interpretation

The language and writing style of the Ekron inscription show significant Phoenician influence, and the name is understood as

. The inscription contains a list of five of the kings of Ekron, fathers to sons: Ya'ir, Ada, Yasid, Padi, and Achish, and the name of the goddess to whom the temple is dedicated. Padi and Achish (as "Ikausu") are mentioned in the Neo-Assyrian Royal Annals, which provide the basis for dating their reigns to the late 8th and 7th centuries BCE. The inscription also securely identified the site by mentioning the name Ekron. The identity of has been subject to scholarly debate, with the third letter being: * a very small

gimel Gimel is the third (in alphabetical order; fifth in spelling order) letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''gīml'' 𐤂, Hebrew ''gīmel'' , Aramaic ''gāmal'' 𐡂, Syriac ''gāmal'' ܓ and Arabic ''ǧīm'' . It is also rela ...

, giving , which could be a previously unknown deity, * a

resh Resh is the twentieth Letter (alphabet), letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician ''rēš'' 𐤓, Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew ''rēš'' , Aramaic alphabet, Aramaic ''rēš'' 𐡓‎, Syriac alphabet, Syriac ''rēš'' � ...

, giving for

Pidray Pidray (, ''pdry'') was an Ugaritic goddess of uncertain character. She is first attested as an Amorite deity in a bilingual Mesopotamian lexical list, but she is otherwise almost exclusively from Ugaritic texts. While she is well attested in thi ...

the daughter of

Baal Baal (), or Baʻal, was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The ...

, * a

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service and contemplation, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 5 ...

, giving , * no letter at all, giving Berlant, 2008, p.16-18, "After inspecting the questionable letter closely, however, Demsky concluded that it “is no more than a wedge shaped chip in the porous stone,” and that Yardeni had drawn the letter’s left line “too concave” In addition, Demsky concluded that what Gitin, Dothan, and Naveh had interpreted and Yardeni had drawn as the letter’s right line was nothing but an unintended “spur,” rather than a real line. On the other hand, after comparing the questionable letter to the inscription’s nuns, Demsky went on to hypothesize that the name of this deity is Ptnyh, presumably representing the Greek word potni or

potnia Potnia is an Ancient Greek word for "Mistress, Lady" and a title of a goddess. The word was inherited by Classical Greek from Mycenean Greek with the same meaning and it was applied to several goddesses. A similar word is the title Despoin ...

for “mistress” or “lady,” in agreement with what Demsky identified as the archaic Greek practice of denoting various deities in Linear B sometimes simply as “Mistress” or “Lady,” and sometimes more specifically as “Mistress or Lady So and So.”... Schäeffer-Lichtenberger argued that, among other problems with Demsky’s hypothesis: (1) “there is no known example of potnia hitherto as a name”; (2) all the nuns begin at the top of lines, but the questionable letter begins six mm. below the line; (3) the letter’s left line was indeed curved, as Gitin, Dothan, and Naveh had claimed; and (4) the space available below the questionable letter would not have allowed the scribe to chisel the tail of a nun or, for that matter, a resh"

Other inscriptions from Ekron

The excavations also produced 16 short inscriptions including kdš l’šrt ("dedicated to he goddess Asherat"), lmqm ("for the shrine"), and the letter tet with three horizontal lines below it (probably indicating 30 units of produce set aside for tithing), and silver hoards.

Discovery

Translation

Interpretation

Other inscriptions from Ekron

References

Further reading