25 An Aramaic Inscription from Daskyleion

[1966]

In 1965, N. Dolunay announced the discovery of dating, most useful after the Sardis Bilingual are the three "Graeco-Persian tomb steles" found reused in a Saqqara funerary inscription of 482 BCE 10 and the Assuan Byzantine tomb in the necropolis of ancient Daskyleion Inscription of the seventh year of Artaxerxes I, 458 in northwestern Anatolia. 1 One stele bears an Aramaic BCE. 11 While the latter has had several formal letter forms inscription; all three are decorated with reliefs. The in• replaced by cursive forms from the Persian chancellery scription together with the reliefs has now been published hand, its lapidary forms stand very close to the script of by Professor A. Dupont-Sommer. 2 the Daskyleion Inscription. The Tayma' Stele, 12 to be Happily, the inscription is well preserved. None of dated in the second half of the fifth century in likeli• its readings are in doubt. It is written in an elegant lapi• hood, 13 is also inscribed in an allied script. In view of the dary script of the Persian period. Dupont-Sommer's date, static character of the lapidary Aramaic script in this era, c. 400 BCE, cannot be far wrong. Certain peculiarities of we must be cautious in assigning a date to the Daskyleion the style of the script tie it closely in time to the Kesei;ek inscription. 14 Perhaps it is best to date it to 450 BCE plus Koyii (Cilicia) Inscription published by C. C. Torrey, 3 or minus 50 years. and to the famous Sardis Bilingual text published by As we have noted, the text of the inscription is per• E. Littmann in 1916. 4 The latter is dated to the tenth year fectly clear; we read with Dupont-Sommer as follows of Artaxerxes, either Longimanus (455 BCE) or Mnemon [see Fig. 25.1]: (394 BCE). 5 The Daskyleion script may also be compared with the scripts of the Saraydin Hunting Inscription, 6 the Abydos (Mysia) Lion Weight, 7 the Gozne (Cilicia) has published a fragment of an inscription from Bahadirli, besides an Boundary Inscription, 8 and the recently published Baha• inscription from Hemite, in Jahrbuch far kleinasiatische Forschung I (1950): 108, PL IV, 5, and 45-47 and PL IV, 3. dirli Inscription, 9 all from the Persian epoch. For absolute 10. KAI: 267; CIS II, 122; HNE: XXVIII, I. 11. M. De Vogiie, CRAIBL 1903: 269-70, PL opposite 270; 1. M. Mellink, AJA 69 (1965): 148. I am indebted to my colleague, Lidzbarski: 22lff. This inscription can hardly be attributed to the time of Professor George M. A. Hanfmann, for calling these finds to my atten• Artaxerxes II or III, 398 or 352 BCE, since Persia was not in control of tion. Upper Egypt in these years. 2. "Une inscription arameenne inedite d' epoque perse trouvee a 12. KAI: 228; CIS II, 113; HNE XXVII. [See below, Paper 26.] Daskyleion (Turquie)," CRAIBL 1966: 44-57. 13. The date, the twenty-second year, may be reckoned by the 3. "An Aramaic Inscription from Cilicia," JAOS 35 (1915-17): reign of the Persian king, in which case Artaxerxes I and II are the only 370-74; cf. KAI: 258. candidates: 443 or 383 BCE. 4. Sardis 6, 1 (1916): 23-28; KAI: 260. 14. It should be observed that the dating of lapidary Aramaic is 5. It is conceivable that the Artaxerxes was Ochus, whose tenth difficult in the fifth and fourth centuries when it was being replaced, year was 348. However, in view of the script's palaeographical develop• even on stone, by the standard Persian chancellery script (i.e., the cur• ment, the possibility is remote. sive Persian hand). The speed of its evolution slows and finally the 6. HNE: 446, Taf. XXVI, 3; KAI: 261. script becomes almost static, surviving only in the hinterlands of the 7. HNE: 446, Taf. XXVI; CIS II, 108; KAI: 263. Persian Empire. On the basis of the script alone I have been inclined to 8. KAI: 259. date this inscription in the second half of the fifth century. However, 9. A. Dupont-Sommer and L. Robert, La deesse de Hierapolis Professor Hanfmann suggests to me that artistic and archaeological in• Castabala (Cilicia) (Paris, 1964): 7-15 and Pis. I-II. Dupont-Sommer dications may require an earlier date.

181 182 Aramaic Texts

(1) 'th #mh zy 'lnp br 'sy 2. It was he who made [them] for his funerary (2) hw 'bd lnpsh hwmytk monument. 18 I adjure thee 19 (3) bl wnbw zy 'rl:z' znh 3. by Bel and Nabu, who (ever) 20 passes by this way 21 (4) yhwh 'dh 'ys 'l y'ml 4. let no one do harm22 (to my tomb). Dupont-Sommer translates this text in the following The inscription follows a standard pattern: (1) iden• way: tification of the deceased in whose name the stela or monument is raised, and (2) a form of imprecation di• (1) "Voici l'image de Elnaf fils d'Ishai:. rected at anyone who might be tempted to disturb or rob (2) C'est lui (l')a faite pour soi-meme (en tant the tomb. Even the shift in person in the imprecation be• que devot ?) longs to patterns familiar in entreaties, curses, and male• (3) de Bel et Nabou, pour que cette caravane dictions which close Aramaic inscriptions on tomb stelae (4) passe; que personne n'eprouve de mal!" and sarcophagi. 23 Explicit in Professor Dupont-Sommer's translation of the inscription is his rejection of the view that the ste• lae are funerary monuments. My colleague, Professor It is intriguing that both names contain popular elements in the G. M. A. Hanfmann, has kindly agreed to defend the Arabic onomasticon. It is not unlikely that 'Elnap was an Aramaized view which he holds in common with M. Mellink that the Arab; the close parallels between his stela and those of Tayma' have stelae and their reliefs are typical monuments of the fu• been noted. 18. Napsii', nepes in the sense of 'funerary stela, monument' ap• 15 nerary cult of the Persian epoch. This interpretation of pears in a contemporary Tayma' Inscription ( C/S II, 115) as well as fre• the inscribed stela appears to me to be inescapable, not quently later in Nabataean, Palmyrene, South Arabic, Middle Hebrew, only to account for the standard funerary motifs of the re• and Jewish Aramaic. For another example of its use in Anatolia in the Persian epoch, see below. A recent discussion of nps' with this meaning liefs, but also on the basis of the content of the inscription is given by J. Starcky, Suppl. au Diet. de la Bible VII, col. 951ff., and itself. VI, 1088 and 1091 (sub "Petra et la Nabatene," and "Palmyre"). The inscription when reanalyzed proves to be an or• 19. hwmytk is the normal orthography for the haphel perfect, l.c.s, with a 2.m.s. suffix, of the root ym' 'to swear'. In Syriac 'awmi means dinary funerary text. It may be translated as follows: to 'adjure'. The same usage is found in the targumim, with suffixes: 1. These are the reliefs 16 [literally, images] of }El-nap 'awmitken, 'I adjure you', etc. Dupont-Sommer's resort to a far-fetched Persian etymology, yielding a form not attested in Persian, can be safely 17 son of }SY. dismissed. I have translated the text taking the 'you' of the suffix to apply to 15. See "The New Stelae from Daskylion," BASOR 184 (1966): the wayfarer. The shift from second to third person occasions no diffi• 10--13. culty. On the contrary, it appears in other imprecations in tomb stelae, 16. 'lh must be read as the ordinary demonstrative plural as else• e.g., in the Nerab Stela of Agbar, and in the Cilician Boundary Inscrip• where in Imperial and biblical Aramaic. As Dupont-Sommer has recog• tion from Giizne. See the discussion of this phenomenon by S. Gevirtz, nized, we expect ~lmh to be a plural with suffix. In view of the "West-Semitic Curses ... ," VT 11 (1961): 157 ("However seemingly il• alternation of such forms as -yh and -h (with plural nouns) in Moabite, logical, the change from second to third person in West-Semitic male• -yh in Zincirli, and -h ( with plural nouns) in later Aramaic, we can take dictions is sufficiently well attested to be recognized as a feature of #mh to be plural. Cf. EHO: 38 (No. 37). imprecatory style."). 17. The best parallels to the use of the root nwp, 'to be exalted, However, we should expect b or bsm before Bel, to judge from the high', in proper names are to be found in Arabic and in Old South Ara• usage with ym'. The bet may be omitted before the bet of Bel as often in bic. Cf. South Arabic nwfm, nwfn, yhnf, ynf, and tnf The syntactic pat• Hebrew (most recently in a seventh century text from 'Arad) and Ara• tern of the name is frequent of course in Arabic as well as Northwest maic; or it may be omitted by haplography. Semitic onomastica. An alternate reading is possible, to take Bel and Nabu as the ob• The name 'sy alternates with 'wfy (Palmyra), 's' (Samaria Os• jects of hwmytk: "I adjure thee, 0 Bel and Nabu, anyone who passes by traca, Hatra), and perhaps Punic 'sy. The name has two possible etymol• this way, let him do no harm." ogies. The root 'ws, 'to give, dedicate' is one, known in Ugaritic ('usn, 20. The introduction of an imprecation with zi followed by an im• 'sb'l [?]); Hebrew (y'ws of the Lachish Letters, biblical yhw's, y'syhw, perfect is regular. Zi refers back to the suffix of hwmytk: 'you who .. .' 'fyhw); Amorite (ya-u-us.