Idalion Antiquities at the British Museum 089

The Idalion bilingual is a bilingual Cypriot– Phoenician inscription found in 1869 in Dali, Cyprus. It was the key to the decipherment of the

Cypriot syllabary The Cypriot or Cypriote syllabary is a syllabic script used in Iron Age Cyprus, from about the 11th to the 4th centuries BCE, when it was replaced by the Greek alphabet. A pioneer of that change was King Evagoras of Salamis. It is descended fr ...

, in the manner of the

Rosetta Stone The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Ancien ...

to hieroglyphs.CREWS Display: The Idalion Bilingual
/ref> The discovery of the inscription was first announced by

Paul Schröder Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

in May 1872. It is dated to 388 BCE. The

Phoenician inscription The Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, also known as Northwest Semitic inscriptions, are the primary extra-Biblical source for understanding of the society and history of the ancient Phoenicians, Ancient Hebrews, Hebrews and Arameans. Semitic ins ...

is known as KAI 38 and CIS I 89. It was discovered by

Robert Hamilton Lang Sir Robert Hamilton Lang, Order of St Michael and St George, KCMG (1832-1913) was a Scottish-born financier, diplomat and collector of antiquities. Early life and career A son of the Rev. Gavin Lang, parish minister at Glassford, Lanarkshire, Ro ...

in his excavations at the Temple of Idalium (modern Dali, Cyprus), whose work there had been inspired by the discovery of the Idalion Tablet in 1850. The stone was found in the centre of the temple, together with the five other Idalion Temple inscriptions. The stone is thought to have been a pedestal for a statue, as there is an apparent

dowel A dowel is a cylindrical rod, usually made of wood, plastic, or metal. In its original manufactured form, a dowel is called a ''dowel rod''. Dowel rods are often cut into short lengths called dowel pins. Dowels are commonly used as structural r ...

hole in the top. Lang wrote of his discovery:

The most valuable monument uncovered by my excavations is unquestionably the bilingual inscription in Cyprian and Phoenician, engraved on marble; an inscription which, I feel confident, will ultimately prove the means of enabling philologists to decipher the Cyprian alphabet... The bilingual inscription proves also that, the two alphabets, Phoenician and Cyprian, had a contemporaneous existence.

It is currently in the archives of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docu ...

, with identification number 125320.British Museum BM 125320
/ref> It was exhibited at the

Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th V ...

in Cambridge in 2018.

Inscriptions

Phoenician

The Phoenician inscription is three lines long, written

right-to-left In a script (commonly shortened to right to left or abbreviated RTL, RL-TB or R2L), writing starts from the right of the page and continues to the left, proceeding from top to bottom for new lines. Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Pashto, Urdu, Kashm ...

. :: ��𐤉𐤌𐤌 ? 𐤋𐤉𐤓𐤌𐤇 ?𐤁𐤔𐤍𐤕 𐤀𐤓𐤁𐤏 𐤖𐤖𐤖𐤖 𐤋𐤌𐤋𐤊 · 𐤌𐤋𐤊𐤉𐤕𐤍 ��𐤋𐤊::'' ymm ? lyrmḥ ?bšnt ʾrbʿ 4 lmlk · mlkytn lk' :: n day ? of the month ?in year four (4) of King Milkyaton, ing of :: ��𐤕𐤉 𐤅𐤀𐤃𐤉𐤋 𐤎𐤌𐤋𐤀𐤆 𐤀𐤔 𐤉𐤕𐤍 𐤅𐤉𐤈𐤍 · 𐤀𐤃𐤍 · 𐤁𐤏𐤋𐤓 ��::'' ty wʾdyl smlʾz ʾš ytn wyṭn · ʾdn · bʿlr ' :: ition and Idalion: this isthe statue which was given and raised by Lord Baalro , :: ��𐤍 𐤏𐤁𐤃𐤌𐤋𐤊 𐤋𐤀𐤋�� 𐤋𐤓𐤔𐤐 𐤌𐤊𐤋 · 𐤊 𐤔𐤌 𐤒𐤋 𐤉𐤁𐤓𐤊 ::'' n ʿbdmlk lʾl l ršp mkl · k šm ql ybrk'' :: on of Abdimilk, to his go Reshep Mikal, because he heard his voice: may he bless.

Cypriot

The Cypriot inscription is written in the

Greek language Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), souther ...

. It is four lines long, also written right-to-left. It was used by George Smith to decipher the

in 1871, in the manner of the

to hieroglyphs.CREWS Display: The Idalion Bilingual
/ref> It is dated to 388 BCE. Subsequently, Egyptologist Samuel Birch (1872), numismatist Johannes Brandis (1873), philologists Moritz Schmidt, Wilhelm Deecke, Justus Siegismund (1874) and dialectologist H. L. Ahrens (1876) all built on Smith's decipherment of the stone.Cypro-Syllabic script
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa ::] ' 𐠞𐠪𐠐𐠵𐠩 ' 𐠖𐠑𐠌𐠅𐠰𐠜𐠩 ' 𐠋𐠯𐠃𐠚 ' 𐠊𐠁𐠭𐠑𐠃𐠚 ' 𐠞𐠪𐠐𐠄 ::''] ' Basileus, pa-si-le-wo-se ' mi-li-ki-ja-to-no-se ' ke-ti-o-ne ' ka-e-ta-li-o-ne ' pa-si-le-u'' :: n the fourth yearof King Milkyaton, reigning over Kition and Idalion, ::]𐠕𐠙𐠚 ' 𐠰𐠟𐠞𐠕𐠦𐠚 ' 𐠚𐠵𐠫𐠭𐠭𐠩 ' 𐠰𐠙𐠯𐠥𐠅𐠭𐠚 ' 𐠰𐠮𐠊𐠮𐠩𐠭𐠩 ' 𐠃𐠲𐠙𐠸 ::'']-me-na-ne ' to-pe-pa-me-ro-ne ' ne-wo-so-ta-ta-se ' to-na-ti-ri-ja-ta-ne ' to-te-ka-te-se-ta-se ' o- Wanax, wa-na-kse'' :: n the last (day)of the period of five intercalary days, the prince ::]𐠃𐠀𐠠𐠯𐠖𐠑𐠍𐠚 ' 𐠰𐠀𐠡𐠒𐠛 ' 𐠰𐠀𐠘𐠍𐠒𐠂 ' 𐠀𐠡𐠂𐠵𐠂 ' 𐠭𐠩 ' 𐠁𐠄𐠍𐠏𐠩 ::'']-o-a-pi-ti-mi-li-ko-ne ' to- Apollo, a-po-lo-ni ' to-a-mu-ko-lo-i ' a-po-i-wo-i ' ta-se ' e-u-ko-la-se'' :: aalrom son o Abdimilk, has dedicated this statuette to Apollo Amyklos, from whom he has obtained the accomplishment of his wish. :: ��𐠱𐠋 ' 𐠂𐠱𐠊𐠂 ' 𐠀𐠊𐠭𐠂 ' ::'' pe-tu-ke ' i-tu-ka-i ' a-ka-ta-i :: good fortune.

Bibliography

On the Reading of the Cypriote Inscriptions
George Smith, 1871

Notes

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External links