The Ahiram sarcophagus (also spelled Ahirom; Phoenician: ) was the

sarcophagus A sarcophagus (: sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a coffin, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek language, Greek wikt:σάρξ, σάρξ ...

of a

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

n King of Byblos (c. 1000 BC), discovered in 1923 by the French excavator Pierre Montet in tomb V of the royal necropolis of Byblos. The sarcophagus is famed for its

bas relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

carvings, and its Phoenician inscription. One of five known Byblian royal inscriptions, the inscription is considered to be the earliest known example of the fully developed

Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad (consonantal alphabet) used across the Mediterranean civilization of Phoenicia for most of the 1st millennium BC. It was one of the first alphabets, attested in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions fo ...

.Cook, p1 The Phoenician alphabet is believed to be the parent alphabet for a wide number of the world's current writing systems; including the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

Alphabets, and the

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

and

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

Abjads. For some scholars it represents the ''

terminus post quem A ''terminus post quem'' ('limit after which', sometimes abbreviated TPQ) and ''terminus ante quem'' ('limit before which', abbreviated TAQ) specify the known limits of dating for events or items.. A ''terminus post quem'' is the earliest date t ...

'' of the transmission of the alphabet to Europe. Ahirom is not attested in any other Ancient Oriental source, although some scholars have suggested a possible connection to the contemporaneous King Hiram mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (see

Hiram I Hiram I ( Phoenician: 𐤇𐤓𐤌 ''Ḥirōm'' "my brother is exalted"; Hebrew: חירם ''Ḥīrām''; also called ''Hirom'' or ''Huram'') The sarcophagus was found following a

landslide Landslides, also known as landslips, rockslips or rockslides, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, mudflows, shallow or deep-seated slope failures and debris flows. Landslides ...

in the cliffs surrounding

Byblos Byblos ( ; ), also known as Jebeil, Jbeil or Jubayl (, Lebanese Arabic, locally ), is an ancient city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. The area is believed to have been first settled between 8800 and 7000BC and continuously inhabited ...

(in now modern-day

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

) in late 1923, which revealed a number of Phoenician royal tombs. The tomb of Ahirom was ten metres deep.

Sarcophagus

The sarcophagus of Ahiram was discovered by the French archaeologist Pierre Montet in 1923 in

. Its low relief carved panels make it "the major artistic document for the

Early Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progr ...

" in Phoenicia. p. 13, 19–22/ref> Associated items dating to the

Late Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

either support an early dating, in the 13th century BC or attest the reuse of an early shaft tomb in the 11th century BC. The major scene represents a king seated on a throne carved with winged

sphinx A sphinx ( ; , ; or sphinges ) is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. In Culture of Greece, Greek tradition, the sphinx is a treacherous and merciless being with the head of a woman, th ...

es. A priestess offers him a

lotus flower ''Nelumbo nucifera'', also known as the pink lotus, sacred lotus, Indian lotus, or simply lotus, is one of two extant taxon, extant species of aquatic plant in the Family (biology), family Nelumbonaceae. It is sometimes colloquially called a ...

. On the lid two male figures face one another with seated lions between them. These figures have been interpreted by Glenn Markoe as representing the father and son of the inscription. The rendering of figures and the design of the throne and a table show strong Assyrian influences. A total absence of Egyptian objects of the 20th and 21st dynasties in Phoenicia contrasts sharply with the resumption of Phoenician-Egyptian ties in the 22nd Dynasty of Egypt.

Dating

The date remains the subject of controversy, according to Glenn E. Markoe, "The Emergence of Phoenician Art". The Ahiram inscription is generally dated to ca. 1000 BCE, as Edward M. Cook notes: "Most scholars have taken the Ahiram inscription to date from around 1000 B.C.E.". Cook analyses and dismisses the date in the thirteenth century adopted by C. Garbini, which was the prime source for early dating urged in Bernal, ''Cadmean Letters''. The 13th century had emerged because the sarcophagus was a reused grave, it had originally been used in the 13th century. Also, traces of an erased early Proto-Byblian inscription are visible on the monument. Others, on the basis of objects found near the sarcophagus, think of a later date, around 850 BCE. Arguments for a date in the mid-9th to 8th century BC for the sarcophagus reliefs themselvesand hence the inscription, toowere made on the basis of comparative art history and archaeology by Edith Porada, and on the basis of

paleography Palaeography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, UK) or paleography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, US) (ultimately from , , 'old', and , , 'to write') is the study and academic disciplin ...

among other points by Ronald Wallenfels.

Inscriptions

An inscription of 38 words is found on parts of the rim and the lid of the sarcophagus. It is written in the Old Phoenician dialect of Byblos and is the oldest witness to the

of considerable length discovered to date: (The meaning of the last two words LPP and ŠBL is not well known and has to be guessed at; but it is clear that a curse is meant.) The formulas of the inscription were immediately recognised as literary in nature, and the assured cutting of the archaic letters suggested to Charles Torrey a form of writing already in common use. A 10th-century BC date for the inscription has become widely accepted. Halfway down the burial shaft another short inscription was found incised at the southern wall, the Byblos Necropolis graffito. The three-line graffito reads: :: (1) ld‘t 𐤟 (2) hn yp^?d lk 𐤟 (3) tḥt zn It is usually interpreted as a warning not to proceed further: :: (1) Know: (2) here is disaster(?) for you (3) below this. Recently it has been proposed that it is part of some initiation ritual which remains unknown in detail:

Concerning knowledge: here and now be humble (you yourself!) ‹in› this basement!"

King Ahiram

Ahiram himself is not titled a king, neither of Byblos nor of any other city state. It is said that he was succeeded by his son Ithobaal I who is the first to be explicitly entitled King of Byblos, which is due to an old misreading of a text lacuna. According to a new reconstruction of the lacuna the name of Ahiram's son is to be read ilibaal, and the reading Ithobaal should be disregarded. The early king list of Byblos is again subject to further study.

Heritage designation

The sarcophagus is on public display in the National Museum of Beirut. The General Directorate of Antiquities of Lebanon assembled a list of inscribed objects from different time periods that together illustrate the evolution of the Phoenician alphabet; the sarcophagus is the oldest of these. This list was the basis of a nomination of the alphabet to the Memory of the World International Register maintained by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

. This was accepted in 2005, recognising the objects as documentary heritage of global importance.

References

Literature

* Pierre Montet: ''Byblos et l'Egypte, Quatre Campagnes des Fouilles 1921–1924'', Paris 1928, pp. 228–238, tables CXXVII–CXLI * Ellen Rehm: ''Der Ahiram-Sarkophag'', Mainz 2004 (Forschungen zur phönizisch-punischen und zyprischen Plastik II.1.1; Dynastensarkophage mit szenischen Reliefs aus Byblos und Zypern 1.1) * Reinhard G. Lehmann: ''Die Inschrift(en) des Ahirom-Sarkophags und die Schachtinschrift des Grabes V in Jbeil (Byblos)'', Mainz 2005 (Forschungen zur phönizisch-punischen und zyprischen Plastik II.1. Dynastensarkophage mit szenischen Reliefs aus Byblos und Zypern 1.2) *

Jean-Pierre Thiollet Jean-Pierre Thiollet (; born 9 December 1956) is a French writer and journalist. He is also affiliated with the European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions, a European trade union. Career Thiollet attended a school in Châtelleraul ...

: ''Je m'appelle Byblos''. Paris 2005. * Michael Browning "Scholar updates translation of ancient inscription", in: The Palm Beach Post, Sunday, July 3, 2005, p. 17A. * Reinhard G. Lehmann: Wer war Aḥīrōms Sohn (KAI 1:1)? Eine kalligraphisch-prosopographische Annäherung an eine epigraphisch offene Frage, in: V. Golinets, H. Jenni, H.-P. Mathys und S. Sarasin (Hg.), ''Neue Beiträge zur Semitistik. Fünftes Treffen der ArbeitsgemeinschaftSemitistik in der Deutschen MorgenländischenGesellschaft vom 15.–17. Februar 2012 an der Universität Basel'' (AOAT 425), Münster: Ugarit-Verlag 2015, pp. 163–180

External links

Press release on new deciphering and translation
(in German) {{Authority control 9th-century BC works 1923 archaeological discoveries Phoenician inscriptions Byblian royal inscriptions KAI inscriptions Kings of Byblos Phoenician sarcophagi Collection of the National Museum of Beirut Archaeological discoveries in Lebanon Hiram I