The Punic-Libyan bilingual inscriptions are two important ancient

bilingual inscription In epigraphy, a multilingual inscription is an inscription that includes the same text in two or more languages. A bilingual is an inscription that includes the same text in two languages (or trilingual in the case of three languages, etc.). Mul ...

s dated to the 2nd century BC. The first known, the Cenotaph Inscription, was discovered in 1852, played a significant role in

deciphering In philology, decipherment is the discovery of the meaning of texts written in ancient or obscure languages or scripts. Decipherment in cryptography refers to decryption. The term is used sardonically in everyday language to describe attempts ...

the

Libyco-Berber script The Libyco-Berber alphabet or the Libyc alphabet (modern Berber name: ''Agemmay Alibu-Maziɣ'') is an abjad writing system that was used during the first millennium BC by various Berber peoples of North Africa and the Canary Islands, to write anci ...

, in which the

Numidian language Numidian was a language spoken in ancient Numidia, a territory covering much of northern Africa. The script in which it was written, the Libyco-Berber alphabet (from which Tifinagh descended), has been almost fully deciphered and most characters ...

(Old Libyan) was written. The language is however still not fully understood. The inscription once formed part of the Libyco-Punic Mausoleum (Mausoleum of Ateban) at Dougga in

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

, before it was removed in the mid nineteenth century and taken to London, where it is now in the British Museum's ancient

Middle Eastern The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europea ...

collection. The second inscription, the Temple Inscription, is longer than the first, and was discovered in 1904 in the Temple of Jupiter at Dougga. It is currently at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, with casts in the archives of the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the '' Venus de Milo''. A central ...

and 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 docum ...

. The Libyan inscriptions are the first two, and the longest two, published in

Jean-Baptiste Chabot Jean-Baptiste Chabot (16 February 1860 – 7 January 1948) was a Roman Catholic secular priest and the leading French Syriac scholar in the first half of the twentieth century. Life Born into a viticultural family at Vouvray-sur-Loire, Chabot ...

's 1940 work ''Recueil des Inscriptions Libyques'' (known as RIL), as RIL 1 and RIL2. The Punic inscriptions are known as KAI 100 and KAI 101 in the ''

Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften (in English, Canaanite and Aramaic Inscriptions), or KAI, is the standard source for the original text of Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions not contained in the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. It was fir ...

''.

Cenotaph (Ateban) inscription

Discovery

It was noted by traveller Thomas d'Arcos in 1631 in his correspondence with

Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1 December 1580 – 24 June 1637), often known simply as Peiresc, or by the Latin form of his name, Peirescius, was a French astronomer, antiquary and savant, who maintained a wide correspondence with scientis ...

; however this was not published at the time and was unknown to the explorers in the early 19th century. It was rediscovered in 1815 by Count Borgia, and published by

Friedrich Münter Friedrich Christian Carl Heinrich Münter (14 October 1761 – 9 April 1830) was a German-Danish scholar, theologian, and Bishop of Zealand from 1808 until his death. His name has also been recorded as Friederich Münter. In addition to his posi ...

in 1821,

Jean Emile Humbert Jean Emile Humbert (23 July 1771 in The Hague – 20 February 1839 in Livorno) was a Dutch lieutenant-colonel who can be credited with rediscovering ancient Carthage. As an agent for the Dutch government he procured vital parts of the collecti ...

in 1821, and

Hendrik Arent Hamaker Hendrik Arent Hamaker was a Dutch Assyriologist, philologist and orientalist, born in Amsterdam on 25 February 1789 and died in Nederlangbroek on 7 October 1835. He studied most European and Asian languages, and the history and geography of ...

in 1828. Munter wrote that: "On the right side it is Punic, or Mauritanian, because I find letters that seem alien to the Punic Alphabet, as far as we know it up to now; on the left are the letters of which a sample is given here. The right side is best preserved." In 1842, Sir

Thomas Reade Sir Thomas Reade (1782 – 1 August 1849) was a British army officer during the Napoleonic Wars, known also as a collector. In 1799, at the age of sixteen, he ran away from home to enlist in the army and participate in campaigns in Holland, Egy ...

, the British

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states throu ...

Tunis ''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois , population_note = , population_urban = , population_metro = 2658816 , population_density_km2 = , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 ...

, ordered the removal of this inscription from the Mausoleum, which in the process seriously damaged the monument. Recognising the importance of the bilingual inscription in decoding the

Libyan Demographics of Libya is the demography of Libya, specifically covering population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, and religious affiliations, as well as other aspects of the Libyan population. The ...

language, Reade had it dispatched to London for the 'benefit of

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...

'. Reade demolished the entire wall in which the inscription was embedded, leaving the stone blocks that framed it litter the ground around the mausoleum. Two of Reade’s compatriots, Bruce and Catherwood, had taken accurate drawings of the building prior to the removal.

Description

The Mausoleum of Ateban was built in the second century BC by the inhabitants of Dougga in remembrance of an important prince or dignitary of

Numidia Numidia ( Berber: ''Inumiden''; 202–40 BC) was the ancient kingdom of the Numidians located in northwest Africa, initially comprising the territory that now makes up modern-day Algeria, but later expanding across what is today known as Tunis ...

. Some have conjectured that it was built for Massinissa, King of Numidia. A

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

with bilingual script was installed on the

podium A podium (plural podiums or podia) is a platform used to raise something to a short distance above its surroundings. It derives from the Greek ''πόδι'' (foot). In architecture a building can rest on a large podium. Podiums can also be use ...

of the

mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be cons ...

. The left half of the inscription was engraved in the

Punic language The Punic language, also called Phoenicio-Punic or Carthaginian, is an extinct variety of the Phoenician language, a Canaanite language of the Northwest Semitic branch of the Semitic languages. An offshoot of the Phoenician language of coastal ...

, the other half in the

. The bilingual nature of the inscription made it possible for scholars to decode the ancient Libyco-Berber script, which was 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, Kashmir ...

Translation

A modern

translation Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...

of the inscription indicates that the tomb was dedicated to Ateban, the son of Iepmatath, the son of Palu. Other names cited in the inscription, both

Punic The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of t ...

and Libyan names (and even possibly a

Syrian Syrians ( ar, سُورِيُّون, ''Sūriyyīn'') are an Eastern Mediterranean ethnic group indigenous to the Levant. They share common Levantine Semitic roots. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend of both indi ...

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

name), refer to the

monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

's architect and the representatives of different professions involved in its construction.

Temple (Massinissa) inscription

Louvre cast of the Dougga Temple bilingual (AO 4611)

The Temple Inscription was discovered in 1904 during the excavations led by Eugène Sadoux in the Temple of Jupiter at Dougga.Berger Philippe
Découverte à Dougga (Tunisie) d'une inscription dédicatoire d'un temple élevé en l'honneur de Massinissa
In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 48ᵉ année, N. 4, 1904. pp. 406-407. It is currently at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, with casts in the archives of the

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AO 4611
and the

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.Chabot, J.-B. (1916): “Les inscriptions puniques de Dougga”, CRAI, 119-131; (1918): �
Punica
��, Journal Asiatique, mars-avril. It is a dedicatory inscription of the temple, which it states was erected in honor of Massinissa, known for his involvement in the

Second Punic War The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Ital ...

from

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in ...

's ''

History of Rome The history of Rome includes the history of the city of Rome as well as the civilisation of ancient Rome. Roman history has been influential on the modern world, especially in the history of the Catholic Church, and Roman law has influenced ...

.''

Cenotaph (Ateban) inscription

Discovery

Description

Translation

Temple (Massinissa) inscription

See also

References

Further reading