An undeciphered alphabetic

stele A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...

found in Ördek-Burnu, 20 km south of Sam'al (8 miles south of Zinjirli) in what is now northern

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

, dates to the 9th century BCE. The language of the inscription is difficult to interpret. It contains Semitic words but is not grammatically Semitic, and may be a mixture of

Luwian Luwian (), sometimes known as Luvian or Luish, is an ancient language, or group of languages, within the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The ethnonym Luwian comes from ''Luwiya'' (also spelled ''Luwia'' or ''Luvia'') – ...

and a

Semitic language The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew, Maltese, Modern South Arabian languages and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by mo ...

.Holger Gzella, ''Language and Script'', in: Herbert Niehr (2014), ''The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria'', p. 75, but. cf. Lemaire and Sass 2013. It is kept in

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

Bibliography

* Mark Lidzbarski: ''VI. Die Stele von Ördek-burnu. Ephemeris für Semitische Epigraphik III.'' Giessen 1915, pp. 192–206, pls. 13–15. * André Lemaire and Benjamin Sass: ''The Mortuary Stele with Sam’alian Inscription from Ördekburnu near Zincirli'', in: ''BASOR'' 369, 2013, pp. 57–136.

References

{{Semitic-lang-stub 9th-century BC steles Archaeological sites in Southeastern Anatolia Ancient Near East steles Luwian language Aramaic inscriptions Unclassified languages of Asia Extinct languages of Asia Archaeological discoveries in Asia