Pyrgi Tablets - Phoenician Text

Phoenician Text

l-rbt l-ʻštrt,

To lady Ashtarot,

ʼšr qdš ʼz, ʼš pʻl, w-ʼš ytn tbryʼ wlnš mlk ʻl kyšryʼ.

This is the holy place, which was made, and which was given by Tiberius Velianas who reigns over the Caerites.

b-yrḥ zbḥ šmš, b-mtnʼ b-bt, wbn tw.

During the month of the sacrifice to the Sun, as a gift in the temple, he built an aedicula.

k-ʻštrt ʼrš b-dy l-mlky šnt šlš, b-yrḥ krr, b-ym qbr ʼlm

For Ashtarot raised him with Her hand to reign for three years from the month of Churvar, from the day of the burial of the divinity .

w-šnt lmʼš ʼlm b-bty šnt km h kkb m ʼl.

And the years of the statue of the divinity in the temple as many years as the stars above.

The Phoenician text has long been known to be in a Semitic, more specifically Canaanite language (very closely related to Hebrew, and also relatively close to Aramaic and Ugaritic); hence there was no need for it to be "deciphered." And while the inscription can certainly be read, certain passages are philologically uncertain on account of perceived complications of syntax and the vocabulary employed in the inscription, and as such they have become the source of debate among both Semiticists and Classicists.

Supplamentry to the Pyrgi Tablets,inscriptios on vessels

found in the sancturary at Pyrgi.

unial: div) patera,or plate V TLE 877

unial:(div) patera, or plate V REE 40 n54

• ]starte/s/ ?] cvestarte/ / in REE) (div?)

fragment vasis,or vessel IV REE 56 n31

mi :"s'uris : cava'th'as,(div)patera, or plate V REE 64 n36.

]xcava'th'as 2]a emini[(div) Greek kylix, V REE 56 n24