Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; West Semitic Monumental Inscriptions; Mortuary Inscriptions; Aramaic Inscriptions Funerary Stela (Saqqarah; Location Unknown) (2.63) Blessed be Peṭees[e] son of Yhʾ[1… by/before DN] Bibliographical References Aimé-Giron 1939 Fitzmyer and Kaufman 1992:B.3.e.28  TAD D20.4. Notes^ back to text1. The praenomen is Eg. ( pʾ-dy-ʾs.t, “The [One] whom Isis Gave”) but the fragmentary patronym is unrecoverable.Porten, Bezalel

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; West Semitic Monumental Inscriptions; Building and Dedicatory Inscriptions; Hebrew Inscriptions Commentary The inscription was discovered in 1880 on the wall of a Jerusalem tunnel that leads from the Gihon Spring to the pool of Siloam. The inscription occupies the lower half of a prepared panel that is approximately 0.50 m in height and 0.66 m in width. The tunnel winds through the Mizzi Ahmar dolomite rock for a length of approximately 533 m (corresponding roughly to the inscription’s 1,200 cubits).1 It is essentially an…

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; Akkadian Monumental Inscriptions; Building and Display Inscriptions; Late Old Babylonian Inscriptions Commentary The ancient city of Mari (modern Tell Hariri) was a major player on the Mesopotamian stage from Early Dynastic to Old Babylonian times. The site has been excavated by a long series of French expeditions led by A. Parrot (1933–38, 1951–74) and J.-Cl. Margueron (since 1979). After a long period of rule by “viceroys” ( šakkanakkū) in the Sargonic, Ur III and early Old Babylonian periods, the Amorite l…

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; Akkadian Monumental Inscriptions; “Functional” Inscriptions; Laws Commentary By the beginning of the second millennium, Amorite and other nomadic population groups integrated into Mesopotamian urban political and social life. The Amorite Sumu-abum (ca. 1894–1881 bce) settled in Babylon, in the wasp-waist center of Mesopotamia, at the time that the rival cities of Isin and Larsa were struggling for dominance in the south. He and his successors for one hundred years stayed focuse…

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; West Semitic Monumental Inscriptions; Votive Inscriptions; Hebrew Inscriptions Commentary The second pithos from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, like the first, is decorated with a number of drawings, including a cow, an archer with his bow drawn, and a group of five human figures, standing with their hands extended as if in worship or supplication. The pithos also bears four separate inscriptions. First is a complete Hebrew abecedary, with the letters pe and ʿayin re…

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; West Semitic Monumental Inscriptions; Votive Inscriptions; Hebrew Inscriptions Commentary A number of Hebrew inscriptions, primarily religious in content, were found in excavations conducted during the 1970’s by Ze’ev Meshel for the Tel Aviv Institute of Archaeology at the site of Kuntillet ʿAjrud, a major crossroads in the northeastern Sinai. The inscriptions were found in the ruins of the better preserved of the two buildings found at the site, which h…

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; Akkadian Monumental Inscriptions; Building and Display Inscriptions; Neo-Assyrian Inscriptions Commentary This text is inscribed on a broken stone stela,1 belonging to a type of stela which was set up locally to commemorate events in the district. Thus it was probably incised after the successful completion of the campaign in Syria and Palestine in 720 bce. This document reveals what had not been known before its publication, namely that thousands of Assyrians were “guilty” of rebellion according …

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; Akkadian Monumental Inscriptions; Building and Display Inscriptions; Neo-Assyrian Inscriptions Commentary The date of this earliest of Sennacherib’s campaigns is disputed; it was directed against Merodach-baladan, who had seized the opportunity of Sargon’s death (705 bce) to proclaim himself king of Babylon, in opposition to the upstart rebel Marduk-zakir-shumi. Levine (1982) favors a date from winter 704 through early 702, while Brinkman (1984) opts for 703–702, considerably sh…

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; Egyptian Monumental Inscriptions; Mortuary Inscriptions; The Book of the Dead Commentary The New Kingdom vignette depicts the deceased standing behind the spotted Khurer-calf, with his arms raised in daily adoration of a seated Re-Harakhty. The spell is a counterpart to Coffin Text 160 ( COS COSB.1.21) and Book of the Dead 108 for “Knowing the Souls of the Westerners.” For discussion, see Sethe 1924:1–20; and the bibliography in Hornung 1979:482. As in the earlier Coffin Texts, the remarkable size of the underwor…

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; Akkadian Monumental Inscriptions; Building and Display Inscriptions; Neo-Assyrian Inscriptions Commentary This inscription was incised on two colossal, dark gray basalt lions that were discovered at Tell Ahmar (Tīl-Barsip/Kār Shalmaneser)1 originally in 1908. A study of one of the lions in 1988 revealed that it was 258 cm in height; with a length of 250 cm; and a width of 120 cm (Roobaert 1990:127). While the text is in the form of a royal dedicatory inscription, its au…

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; Hittite Monumental Inscriptions; Hieroglyphic Inscriptions Commentary Maraş 4 Kululu 4 3. Funerary Inscriptions (2.22)

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; Egyptian Monumental Inscriptions; Mortuary Inscriptions; Pyramid Texts Commentary First carved in the Fifth Dynasty tomb of Unas (ca. 2350 BCE), the collection of 759 spells known as the “Pyramid Texts” was originally restricted to royal use, appearing in varying numbers in the pyramids of nine kings and queens of the Sixth to Eighth Dynasties. The texts stress the divinity and immortality of the monarch, and provide the earliest extensive commentary on…

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; Sumerian Monumental Inscriptions; Building and Display Inscriptions; Neo-Sumerian Inscriptions Commentary A twenty-two line inscription known from clay cones, a stone foundation tablet and an Old Babylonian (?) tablet copy deals with the construction of the “great wall” (likely a temenos wall) of Ur by Ibbi-Sin (the fifth and last king of the Ur III Dynasty, who reigned ca. 2028–2004 BCE). Ibbi-Sin (2.141A) (1–5) Ibbi-Sin, god of his land, mighty king, king of Ur, king of the four quarters, (6–7) on account of the great l…

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; Akkadian Monumental Inscriptions; Votive Seal Inscriptions Commentary This four-sided bead is described as a seal in its inscription. It provides a parallel of sorts to the seal from Beer-sheba, since it mentions the same unusual divine name. The donor is a namesake of a king of Babylon who ruled in the first half of the ninth century, but had a different patronymic. A seal of lapis lazuli — Nabu-apla-iddina, son of Shamash-eresh, for the well-being of his life, the length of his days (and) the furthering …

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; Akkadian Monumental Inscriptions; Building and Display Inscriptions; Neo-Assyrian Inscriptions Commentary This inscription is engraved on a badly worn stone stela from Sabaʾa, south of Jebel Sinjar. The stela is 192 cm in height and contains a relief of the king along with divine symbols on its top and text below. Interestingly, about two-thirds of the text (lines 1–22) are a royal dedicatory inscription; then Nergal-ēreš, a governor under Adad-nirari I…

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; West Semitic Monumental Inscriptions; Votive Inscriptions; Hebrew Inscriptions Commentary This inscription fell from the doorjamb of the entryway to the western storage room in the main building at Kuntillet ʿAjrud. Preserved on the plaster are portions of five lines of a much longer text, which was poetic in character and similar in striking ways to certain theophanic passages found in archaic biblical poetry. Though the script is Phoenician, the language is probably Hebrew (cf. notes 1 and 2). Kuntillet ʿAjrud: Plast…

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; Akkadian Monumental Inscriptions; Building and Display Inscriptions; Old Akkadian Inscriptions Commentary This inscription is preserved on the socle of a statue made of copper, representing a crouching male figure of a laḫmu-Monster with the upper part of the body missing. The statue was found 1975 near Bāṣetkī, a small village on the way from Mossul to Zākhō, during road construction. The text deals with the background of the deification of Narām-s…

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; Akkadian Monumental Inscriptions; Building and Display Inscriptions; Neo-Assyrian Inscriptions Commentary Discovered by Iraqi archaeologists in salvage work in the Ḥadītha Dam area, this four-column clay tablet was found at Sūr Jarʿā and contains a lengthy account of Ninurta-kudurrī-uṣur. It was apparently composed in the seventh year of his “governorship” (see lines iv.38b´-40´).1 Written in the Babylonian dialect with both Assyrian and Aramaic influences, the text describes Ninurta-kudu…

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; West Semitic Monumental Inscriptions; Miscellaneous Inscriptions Commentary These five arrowheads, inscribed with Old Canaanite alphabetic letters, were found near Bethlehem and published between 1954 and 1980.1 Their weight and size, between 9.5 and 10.5 cm, fall within normal parameters for arrowheads used for practical purposes.2 Dating to ca 1100–1050 bce,3 these inscriptions provide witness both to literacy and goddess religion in Palestine during the late second millennium. The El Khadr Arrowheads (2.84) Su…

Subject: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World; Egyptian Monumental Inscriptions; Mortuary Inscriptions; Grave Inscriptions Commentary This hymn of the God’s Father, and later Pharaoh, Ay derives from the east wall thickness of his private tomb at Amarna. Reflecting the official theology of the contemporary Atenist cult, the prayer stresses the universality of Aten, the visible solar disk, and the prophetic role of his son, Akhenaten. The hymnist’s figurative expressions of abundance in terms of huma…