Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T20:52:14.291Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Inscription from Kythera

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Ernst F. Weidner  and
Helen Thomas
Ernst F. Weidner
Affiliation:
Berlin
Helen Thomas
Affiliation:
Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The inscription from Kythera (Fig. 1) to which Miss Thomas drew attention in the last part of the JHS (lviii, p. 256), is an early Babylonian cuneiform inscription which has already been the object of considerable study on the part of Assyriologists. It was first discussed by Hugo Winckler (SB Preuss. Akad. Wiss. 1897, 262–4) as part of an article by Ulrich Kohler (Ueber Probleme der gr. Vorzeit, l.e., 258–274). Winckler successfully deciphered lines 4 and 5, and established the correct reading of some of the signs in the first lines. He thought the inscription dated between 1500 and 1200 b.c., and thus, as Köhler added, from the finest period of Mycenean culture. Köhler (p. 265) further said that the cuneiform tablet might have been brought to Kythera at that time with other oriental bric-á-brac, like the Egyptian scarabs found in Rhodes and in the plain of Argos.

Many years later the study of this inscription was again taken up by Eckhard Unger (Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte xiii (1929) p. 313, pl. 58A), who went beyond Winckler and succeeded in reading the third line as well. On the other hand, his deciphering of the first two lines, his restoration of the third and fourth, his assertions on its place of origin (according to him Tilmun in the region of the Persian Gulf), and the date he gives it are not proof against criticism. For this, however, he is hardly to blame, since it is only very recently that the American excavations in Western Asia have shed light upon the author of this inscription.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , 1939 , pp. 137 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1939

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 137 note 1 Cp. Jeremias, Chr., Die Vergöttlichung der babylonisch-assyrischen Könige in Der Alte Orient, 19, 3/4 (Leipzig 1919)Google Scholar; McEwan, C. W., The Oriental Origin of Hellenistic Kingship (Chicago 1934), pp. 7 ff.Google Scholar

page 137 note 2 Cp. Frankfort, H., Jacobsen, Th. and Preusser, C., Tell Asmar and Khafaje. The First Season's Work in Eshnunna, 1930/31 (Chicago 1932), p. 47Google Scholar; Jacobsen, , Philological Notes on Eshnunna and its Inscriptions (Chicago 1934), p. 6Google Scholar.

page 137 note 3 Cp. Jacobsen, in Frankfort, H., Progress of the Work of the Oriental Institute in Iraq, 1934/5 (Chicago 1936), pp. 83 f.Google Scholar

page 138 note 1 Cp. Frankfort, H., Cylinder Seals (London 1939), p. 302Google Scholar, and the bibliography given there in note 2.

page 138 note 2 Archiv für Orientforschung, xii, p. 290Google Scholar.

page 138 note 3 Cp. Sayce, A. H., JHS, li, pp. 286 f.Google Scholar; Albright, , Journ. Am. Orient. Soc., 45, pp. 236 f.Google Scholar

page 138 note 4 Especially Albright, who gives a thorough discussion of the text, l.c., pp. 193–245.