43 A Newly Published Inscription of the Persian Age fromByblos

[1979]

In 1969 Jean Starcky published a fragmentary funer• These lines bristle with problems. Fortunately, simi• ary inscription from Byblos. 1 Its text is preserved on a lar funerary texts, in particular those of Siptibacl, Tabnit broken piece of a sarcophagus found reused in the Cru• and )Esmuncazor, supply key parallels which aid in re• sader castle. In its script, style of engraving, and formu• construction. I propose the following transcription and lae, it stands very close to the sarcophagus inscription of translation of these lines: (the son of) Siptibacl from Byblos2 dating from the first 1. ['nk (PN and titulary) skh h'm ]in 'nk IJ:tdy wkn hn 'nk half of the fifth century BCE, and may be attributed to roughly the same date. skh h'm zn 'sp hmr whdl[J:t 2. Starcky transcribed and translated the first three lines w'm kl 'dm yhqs lptJ:t ']It 'm zn wlrgz '~my h'gzt hqsn h'dr whkl dr [hn 'Im as follows: 3. mlk prs] wmdy 'dn mlkm wdrkm {wdrkm} 1.] 0 n 'nk IJ:tdy wkn hn 'nk skh h'm zn 'sp hmr whdl[J:t ylkt hrbm[ 2. lptJ:t ']It 'm zn wlrgz '~my h'g ythqsn h'dr whkl d[ 1. [I (PN and titulary) lie in] this [sarcophagus], I o , o o o dd. 3 ] mdy dn mlkm wdrkmn ylkt hrrm[ alone, and here, behold I lie prepared for burial in myrrh and bdel[lium ... 1.... moi je suis tout seul, et ainsi, voici que je re• 2 .... and if anyone seeks to open] this sarcophagus pose dans ce sarcophage, recueilli dans la myrrhe et le or to disturb my mouldering bones, seek him out, 0 bdellium .. . (Bacl) Addir and with all the assembly [of the gods ... 2 .... pour ouvrir] ce sarcophage et pour troubler 3 .... king of the Persians] and , lord of king• mes os, le 'Og me cherchera, le Puissant, et dans tout ... [ doms and dominions {and dominions}. I walked among 3 .... MDY le seigneur des rois, et ... de drachmes, the great[ ... j 'ai apporte dans le ... Line 1. The reconstruction of the beginning of the line is based on the sarcophagus inscription of Tabnit: 'nk 1. Jean Starcky, "Une inscription phenicienne de Byblos," Me• thnt khn 'strt mlk ~dnm ... skh h'm z. The 'nk IJ:tdy takes langes offerts a M. Maurice Dunand, MUSJ 45 (1969): 259-73, Pl. I up an initial 'nk, and the deceased's name and title (per• (facing p. 262). See more recently, J. Teixidor: "Bulletin d'epigraphie semitique 1972," 49 (1972): 430-31; and W. Riillig: "Eine neue haps also with his father's name and title) filled the be• phoenizische Inschrift aus Byblos," Neue Ephemeris far semitische Epi• ginning of the first line. The content of the inscription, graphik 2 (1974): 1-15. Since this article was written, the following pa• especially the reference to the king of Persia and to pers have come to my attention: A. van Branden, "Quelques notes concemant le vocabulaire phenico-punique;' RSF 2 (1974): 137-47; "walking among the great" (see below), makes it highly I. Schiffman: "Studien zur Interpretation der neuen phiinizischen In• likely that the deceased was king of Byblos. He may have schrift aus Byblos," RSF 4 (1976): 171-77. been a successor of the son of Siptibacl, whose inscription 2. This text was published by M. Dunand: Byblia Grammata (Beirut: Direction des Antiquites, Republique Libanaise, 1945): 146-51 so resembles our text, or conceivably even Siptibacl him• and Pis. XV -XVI; cf KAI: 9. self. Unhappily, our palaeographical tools are not precise

282 A Newly Published Inscription of the Persian Age from Byblos 283 enough to date the inscription within a fifty-year span of In fact, the sequence has been misread. The word time. '~my (feminine plural with suffix) is followed by h'gzt The first word on the stone is certainly zn not b']rn (there is no space after the gimel) and then after a clear (Rolling). Compare the formula of Tabnit (/: 13, 1-3). space, bqsn. The reading z for Starcky's y in h'gzt I re• The word kn has been taken as a cognate of Hebrew kn. gard as certain. The upper left horizontal is chipped and The combination kn, so understood, with hn is awkward. broadened, but the yod in this text (and period) has its In middle Hebrew we find kan, 'here', derived from k + lower left horizontal very low on the vertical, angling 'an. The word need not be taken as an Aramaism in down to the left. A counterclockwise rotation of the yod Rabbinic Hebrew. Both elements are old Hebrew, and is beginning in this script; compare the clear yods of lines isoglosses between middle Hebrew and Phoenician, un• 5 and 6. The construction, feminine plural with suffix, documented in classical Hebrew, are not rare. 3 followed by a feminine plural adjective with the article, Both Starcky and Rollig have taken 'sp to mean is standard in Phoenician as in Hebrew. 4 'gathered (to my fathers)'. There is, however, a far better The root 'gz does not appear elsewhere in Canaanite. idiom in biblical Hebrew, 'spin the sense 'to prepare or It is, however, a well-known root in Arabic. The verbal compose for burial' found, for example, in Jeremiah 8: 2; root has two basic nuclei of meaning: (1) 'to be feeble, 25: 33; and Ezekiel 29: 5. weary, infirm, old' and (2) 'to be left behind, in the rear'. Line 2. By use of the several extant formulae con• The adjective 'ajuz similarly means (1) 'to be old [espe• cerning the opening of a sarcophagus and disturbing cially of a woman, but also of an elder], weary, impotent', bones we can reconstruct this line with some confidence. and (2) 'that which is left behind'. It is unclear which is The 'Esmuncazor text reads wkl 'dm 'l ypt!J 'yt mskb z w'l the primary of these two series of meanings. Following ybqs (KAI: 14, 4); Siptibacl has '[lt h'rn] zn lrgz '~my the first we can render 'aged bones', or 'decrepit bones', (KAI: 9, 5); and a formula from Tabnit reads w'm pt!J tpt!J or following the second, 'my bones left behind', i.e., 'my 'lty wrgz trgzn. The formula in our text is in the third per• remains'. I prefer in this context to translate 'my decrepit/ son, and it is clear that we have a conditional sentence mouldering bones'. followed by a petition to the gods to punish anyone who The form bqsn is the imperative following the famil• disturbs the tomb (cf. Tabnit, Siptiba