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A Phœnician Inscription from Eastern Cilicia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

R. D. Barnett ,
J. Leveen  and
C. Moss
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Extract

In 1946 Professor Helmuth Bossert, a distinguished scholar who had already made several remarkable contributions to Anatolian studies and had taken an outstanding part in the decipherment of the Hittite hieroglyphs, in collaboration with an able Turkish colleague, Dr. Bahadir Alkim, published the first account of their discovery of fragments of Old Semitic inscriptions at Karatepe (Aslantaş), in Cilicia. The site is marked by the remains of a small walled enclosure at the top of a hill in the most inaccessible recesses of the Upper Ceyhan River, on its West bank. Opposite Karatepe on the East bank of the river on a hill called Domuztepe, they found remains of a little township, evidently of the late Hittite period. But to return to Karatepe, about which the discoverers furnish further welcome information in their second report; it appears that inside the walled enclosure, there was a series of carved basalt slabs facing East, and forming either the façade of a small temple-palace such as was discovered at Tell Halaf or Sakca-gözü, or the decoration of a gateway, as at Zincirli or Carchemish. Near by, to the South, was a broken gateway-lion, inscribed.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , Spring 1948 , pp. 56 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1948

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References

page 56 note 1 Karatepe, Kadirli and its Environs. 1st Report. (Publications of the Institute for Research in Ancient Oriental Civilisation, No. 1. Pulhan Matbaasi, Istanbul, 1946.)Google Scholar

page 56 note 2 2nd Report (Publications of the Institute for Research in Ancient Oriental Civilisations, No. 3, Istanbul, 1947) (both reports in English and Turkish).

page 57 note 1 2nd Report, p. 27.

page 57 note 2 To find ’NK here as a name is admittedly odd, and our reading is certain to be challenged; but we know of no alternative interpretation which does not involve even greater objections. For our arguments see p. 62.

page 57 note 3 See Carchemish A lla, iv and the lion-base, I, pl. B1, and my remarks in the forthcoming publication of volume III.

page 57 note 4 The Dnn are represented at Medinet Habu with the Pulasati and Tkk dressed exactly like them.

page 57 note 5 Lidzbarski, , Ephemeris, III, p. 218 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 57 note 6 Z.A. Vol. xxviii (1914), 92 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 58 note 1 Sam'al had had experience of Assyrian invasions before Kilamuwa. His father Ḫaian attempted to resist Shalmaneser, was defeated by him in 858 B.C. and paid tribute in 857.

page 58 note 2 A coin from Aradus of the 2nd century B.C. ( Hill, , B.M. Coins of Phanicia, p. 23)Google Scholar bears the name . This suggests that, if the name ’NK is Phoenician at all, which is doubtful, it is to be vocalised as Inak.

page 58 note 3 Dr. D. Diringer states: “The script is certainly not Aramaic and not all the letters can be considered as Phoenician. Some letters, for instance, the , perhaps the are clearly North Semitic and belong to the ninth century; others (especially the , the , the , seem to have a much more recent form. Some letters seem to belong rather to the Early Hebrew variety. Many letters appear in two or more forms. My impression is that the script and the language here employed are not those used by the scribe in his daily life.”

page 59 note 1 Goetze, Kizzuwatna and the Problem of Hittite Geography.

page 59 note 2 Δίι Ολνβρί<Ψ> τοῦ Κιλίκων ἔθνουδ τῆδ λ(αμπροτάτηδ)’Αναζαρβέων IG.14991. Dittenberger, OGIS. 577.

page 59 note 3 ‘Israel und Damaskus,’ A.f.O. XIV, 153 Google Scholar.

page 59 note 4 See Roscher, s.v. Danaos.

page 60 note 1 See Roscher, s.v. Mopsos, also Myres, , Who were the Greeks? p. 135 Google Scholar and Jones, Cities and Provinces of the Exist Roman Empire, ch. VIII for a good account of the early history of Cilicia.

page 60 note 2 See Barnett, , “Excavations at Mersin, 1938-39,” Liverpool Annals, xxvi Google Scholar, and MissGoldman, , A J.A. 1938, p. 40 ff, for TarsusGoogle Scholar.

page 61 note 1 Ezekiel xxvii.13.14 testifies to the Phoenician interests in the Anatolian sources of supply, for metal vessels, horses and slaves. For the timber of Cilicia, cf Jones' remarks op. cit., p. 199 and 35, on the importance of Cilician forests to the Egyptian fleets in Ptolemaic times.

page 61 note 2 It is probable that KRNTRYŠ is the name of some local deity who was later identified by Greek-speaking natives with Kronos. This is suggested by the curious personal name, Kronides, which occurs in Greek inscriptions, from Castabala, ( J.H.S., 1890, p. 248)Google Scholar, and from Kadirli, near Karatepe (2nd report, p. 22). But the possibility cannot be dismissed that it is to be divided into KRN-TRYŠ, krn being ku(i) rwanas a title or rank found in both Hittite cuneiform and hieroglyphs, while TRYŠ could be a place name such as Taruiša, known from cuneiform sources as a place in Western Anatolia.

page 61 note 3 cf e.g., Hrozny, , hes Inscriptions Hittites Hieroglyphiques, p. 382 (Suvasa) 266, (Bulgar Maden)Google Scholar.

page 61 note 4 See Note 2.

page 62 note 1 e.g., Col. I, lines 4 and 6.

page 63 note 1 The words or letters within square brackets at the end of lines 1-3 of column I and at the beginning of lines 1-15 of column II comprise additional readings supplied by Professor Bossert from portions of duplicate inscriptions after the publication of the inscription by him and Dr. Bahadir Alkim.

page 66 note 1 The distribution of the missing text in lines 5-7 can only be approximately gauged.

page 67 note 1 The following abbreviations are used: HB = Hebrew Bible, the edition consulted being Kittel-Kahle, Stuttgart, 1937 GKC = Gesenius-Kautzsch-Cowley, Hebrew Grammar, Oxford, 1910 Google Scholar. Cooke = Cooke, G. A., Textbook of North-Semitic Inscriptions, Oxford, 1903 Google Scholar. Harris, = Harris, Zellig S., Grammar of the Phanician Language, New Haven, Conn., 1936 Google Scholar.

page 68 note 1 Examples of this use of the imperfect are preserved in Ugaritic. See Harris, Z., Development of the Canaanite Dialects, New Haven, Conn., 1939, p. 46, sqGoogle Scholar.

page 68 note 2 Sometimes written plene, at other times defective.

page 68 note 3 See p. 60.

page 69 note 1 “The Phœnician Inscription of the Tenth Century B.C. from Byblus,” in the J.A.O.S. LXVII, No. 3, 1947 Google Scholar.

page 71 note 1 Ronzevalle, op. cit. p. 330, reads Addô, which he, in common with others, equates with the god Hadad (op. cit. p. 349).