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Palaeography and the Date of the Tell Fal:Jariyeh Bilingual Inscription 1

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Palaeography and the Date of the Tell Fal:Jariyeh Bilingual Inscription 1 4 Palaeography and the Date of the Tell Fal:Jariyeh Bilingual Inscription 1 [1995] 1. Among the striking and remarkable features of Gev Inscription (second quarter of the ninth century), 4 the Tell Fabariyeh Inscription2 is the script chosen by the the contemporary Jar Inscription from Dan, 5 the Bir scribe in which to engrave the Aramaic version. It is an Hadad Inscription (ca. 845 BCE),6 the Aramaic stele from exemplar of Linear Phoenician at an early stage of its de­ Dan (between 842 and 825 BCE), 7 the <Amman Citadel velopment. It has no significant features that characterize the extant Aramaic scripts of the early, middle, and late 4. See B. Mazar, A. Biran, M. Dothan and I. Dunayevsky, "'Ein ninth century BCE. The Aramaic scripts of the ninth cen­ Gev: Excavations in 1961," IEJ (1964): 27-29, and Pl. 13B. The in­ tury are well known, and the sequence of the Aramaic scription is on a jar from Stratum III dated by the excavators to 886-841 ( or 838) BCE; and Gibson II: No. 3. date by external as well as typological scripts is fixed in 5. N. Avigad, "An Inscribed Bowl from Dan," PEQ 100 (1968): data. In this series are the Gozan Pedestal Inscription 42-44 and Pl. 18; and Gibson II: No. 4. from the late tenth century or the beginning of the ninth 6. Fig. 4.3, line 2. See F. M. Cross, "The Stele Dedicated to Mel­ earth by Ben Hadad," BASOR 205 (1972): 36-42; and the revision of century BCE (from the Kapara Period at Gozan), 3 the <E,n that paper below, Paper 23; E. Lipinski, Studies in Aramaic Inscriptions and Onomastics I [Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta l] (Leuven/Lou­ 1. This is a revised version of a paper read at a panel discussion vain, 1974): 15-19; Gibson II, No. l; P. Bordreuil and J. Teixidor, "Nou­ held on July 21, 1982, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in which vel examen de !'inscription de Bar-Hadad," Aula Orienta/is 1 (1983): Jonas Greenfield, Joseph Naveh, Aaron Shaffer, Hayim Tadmor, and I 271-76; A. Lemaire, "La Stele arameenne de Barhadad;' Orientalia 53 participated. I am pleased to be able to present it in homage to Jonas (1984): 337-49; S. Layton (ed. D. Pardee), "Old Aramaic Inscriptions," Greenfield. His contributions to the study of the Tell Fa!)ariyeh text have BA 51 (1988): 172-89; G. G. G. Reinhold, "The Bir-Hadad Stele and the been many and include the following papers: J. C. Greenfield and A. Biblical Kings of Aram," Andrews University Seminary Studies 24 Shaffer, "Notes on the Bilingual Inscription from Tell Fekherye," Shna­ (1986): 115-26; and W. T. Pitard, "The Identity of the Bir Hadad of the ton 5-6 (1982): 119-29; J. C. Greenfield and A. Shaffer, "QLQLT', Melqart Stele," BASOR 272 (1988): 3-21 (with bibliography). I cannot TUBKINNU, Refuse Tips and Treasure Trove," Anatolian Studies 33 accept Pitard's new reading of the patronymic of the Ben Hadad of the (1983): 123-29; J. C. Greenfield and A. Shaffer, "Notes on the Akka­ inscription. I do not like the stance of the taw he reconstructs; I see a dian-Aramaic Bilingual Statue from Tell Fekheryeh, Iraq 45 (1983): zayin. Further I think the sequence [ ]ms[ is clear, and I find the element 109-16; J.C. Greenfield, "A Touch of Eden," Orientalia J. Duchesne­ hmk implausible in a personal name. I still should argue that we can read Guillemin emerita oblata (Leiden, 1984): 219-24; J.C. Greenfield and in line 2: br 'zr[ ]ms[. In 1972 I proposed alternative readings. One of A. Shaffer, "Notes on the Curse Formulae of the Tell Fekherye Inscrip­ these I still prefer: br 'zr [.] [d]ms[qy' br], reading the whole, "The tion," RB 92 (1985): 47-59. stele which Bir Hadad, son of 'Ezer ('Ior), the Damascene, son of the 2. The editio princeps is A. Abou-Assaf, P. Bordreuil and A. R. king of Aram, set up to his lord Milqart to whom he made a vow and Millard, La Statue de Tell Fekherye et son inscription bilingue assyro­ who heard his voice." We take the Bir-Hadad of the inscription to be the arameenne, Etudes Assyriologiques, Cahier 7 (Paris: 1982). For bibliog­ son and crown-prince or coregent of (Hadad-)Idri ('Iilr), who flourished raphy, see John Huehnergard's review of the above-mentioned volume, ca. 870-842 BCE. BASOR 261 (1986): 91-95; W. E. Aufrecht and G. J. Hamilton, "The 7. See A. Biran and J. Naveh, "An Aramaic Stele Fragment from Tell Fakhariyah Bilingual Inscription: A Bibliography;' Newsletter for Tel Dan," IEJ 43 (1993): 81-98; [and 'The Tel Dan Inscription: A New Targumic and Cognate Studies Supplement 4 (1988): 1-7; and S. Lay­ Fragment," IEJ 45 (1995): 1-18. The two events alluded to in the in­ ton (ed. D. Pardee), "Old Aramaic Inscriptions," BA 51 (1988): 172-89. scription are the deaths of Joram and Ahaziah, who according to my 3. Fig. 4.3, line 1. For bibliography and a discussion of the date, chronology overlapped only one year: 842 BCE, and, probably, the rise see below. to kingship of Jehu in 842 BCE, reconstructed in line 12. I should argue 51 52 Palaeography Inscription (mid-ninth century BCE), 8 the Kilamuwa In­ 800 BCE) 11 and the Zakkur Inscription (ca. 800-775 scription (ca. 825 BCE),9 the four }:Iaza'el inscriptions BCE). 12 The Old Canaanite and Early Linear Phoenician (ca. 825 BCE), 10 the Luristan Bronze Jug Inscription (ca. series of scripts is also richly illustrated and closely fixed in date by a network of interlocking historical, archaeo­ that the stele celebrates primarily events that took place in the neighbor­ logical, and typological evidence. The fortuitous circum­ hood of Dan and in l:faza'el's dealings with the kings of Israel and Judah stance that the military elite of Canaan chose to inscribe early in his reign, and should be dated conservatively shortly after 842. bronze arrowheads Following a reference to the invasion of the king of Israel into Dama­ with their names in the eleventh cen­ scene lands, there is a reference to his slaying of seventy kings-a tury has provided a corpus of some thirty published in­ vague and improbable round number-possibly referring to indecisive scriptions that span the eleventh century, and more exist battles early in his reign with, among others, Shalmaneser, before the di­ in museums and private hands. 13 Other tenth- and ninth­ sastrous defeat by Shalmaneser in 841 BCE. In the structure of the ac­ count, l:faza'el' s response to the invasion of Israel into his father's land century texts in Linear Phoenician are in good supply. As is his attack on Joram and Ahaziah. The coupling of the slaying of the I have said, while the language of the Fagariyeh text is two kings suggests that the two were killed during a single campaign in Aramaic, it is not written in an Aramaic script-unless agreement with the biblical account-though the agent of the murders differs. The decisiveness of Shalmaneser's campaigns of 841 and 838 that term is misused to apply to the script, properly called against Damascus probably curtailed his expansionist ambitions until Linear Phoenician, which was used by Phoenicians, Isra­ the last decades of his reign. I do not believe that we can push the date elites and Aramaeans in the late eleventh and early tenth of the stele into the late reign of l:faza'el for palaeographical reasons. BCE. [See Fig. 4.3: Early Aramaic Scripts.] centuries Rather it is written in Phoenician. Such a My comments in note 6 of an earlier version of this paper, phenomenon, inscriptions composed in one language, "Palaeography and the Date of the Tell Fal}ariyeh Bilingual Inscription," written down in the script of another, is not unique. The in Solving Riddles and Untying Knots: Biblical, Epigraphic, and Semitic Kilamuwa Inscription is written in the Aramaic script Studies in Honor of Jonas C. Greenfield, ed. Z. Zevit, S. Gitin, and M. Sokoloff (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1995): 394-95, must be though its language is Phoenician, and the ¼mman Cita­ repudiated. At the time I wrote I had heard only a lecture describing the del Inscription uses an Aramaic script to record a text in new fragment, and had not seen the paper subsequently published. Canaanite (Ammonite); some would argue that the Gezer Some palaeographical remarks are in order owing to the cavalier comments which have been made (e.g., by Baruch Halpern in his paper Calendar, written in a Hebrew dialect, is composed in the "The Stela from Dan," BASOR 296 [1994]: 68). 'Alep is archaic in that Phoenician script. Although it exhibits one or two pecu­ its vertical down-stroke breaks only a short distance through the lower liar features, the Tell Fagariyeh script fits perfectly into horizontal stroke. The Dan exemplars have their best parallels in the the Phoenician 'Amman Citadel Inscription; it is a survival of Phoenician prototypes series, and were there no contrary evi­ from which Aramaic was derived. Dalet has only an incipient "tail." In dence, palaeographers would assign it to the end of the the Aramaic series, only the Gozan Pedestal dalet is less developed. eleventh century BCE. While there are a few letter forms, This is, of course, a trait which distinguishes Aramaic from Hebrew (in­ notably the kap and pe, that are typologically earlier, the cluding Moabite) and Phoenician where the tail develops much later.
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