The Pococke Kition inscriptions were a group of 31 Phoenician and 2 non-

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

found in

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

and published by

Richard Pococke Richard Pococke (19 November 1704 – 25 September 1765)''Notes and Queries'', p. 129. was an English clergyman and writer. He was the Bishop of Ossory (1756–65) and Meath (1765), both dioceses of the Church of Ireland. However, he is best kn ...

in 1745. In describing

Kition Kition (Ancient Greek: , ; Latin: ; Egyptian: ; Phoenician: , , or , ;) was an ancient Phoenician and Greek city-kingdom on the southern coast of Cyprus (in present-day Larnaca), one of the Ten city-kingdoms of Cyprus. Name The name of the ...

(modern

Larnaca Larnaca, also spelled Larnaka, is a city on the southeast coast of Cyprus and the capital of the Larnaca District, district of the same name. With a district population of 155.000 in 2021, it is the third largest city in the country after Nicosi ...

), Pococke wrote: "the walls seem to have been very strong, and in the foundations there have been found many stones, with inscriptions on them, in an unintelligible character, which I suppose, is the antient Phoenician..." The Phoenician inscriptions are known as KAI 33 ( CIS I 11), KAI 35 (CIS I 46) and CIS I 57-85. They represent some of the most important finds in Phoenician and Semitic language studies, as they were used by

Jean-Jacques Barthélemy Jean-Jacques Barthélemy (20 January 1716 – 30 April 1795) was a French Catholic clergyman, archaeologist, numismatologist and scholar who became the first person to decipher an extinct language. He deciphered the Palmyrene alphabet in 1754 ...

in his decipherment of the Phoenician language. Only one of the inscriptions still survives, in the

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street in Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University ...

- all the rest were destroyed in construction work in 1749.

Surviving inscription – KAI 35

The sole surviving inscription is a marble funeral stone, numbered "2" in Pococke's sketch, measuring 12 x 3 x 3 inches; the inscription is in memory of a deceased wife. The inscription was brought to England by a Dr. Porter of

Thaxted Thaxted is a town and civil parish in the Uttlesford district of north-west Essex, England. The town is in the valley of the River Chelmer, not far from its source in the nearby village of Debden, and is 97 metres (318 feet) above sea level (w ...

, and presented to Oxford University by Charles Gray MP in 1751. It was published many times, first by Pococke, and then by John Swinton, Richard Chandler,

Wilhelm Gesenius Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius (3 February 178623 October 1842) was a German orientalist, lexicographer, Christian Hebraist, Lutheran theologian, Biblical scholar and critic. Biography Gesenius was born at Nordhausen. In 1803 he bec ...

, and Johan David Åkerblad. Today it resides at the

, with accession number AN1974.325.Marble block with Phoenician funerary inscription
/ref>

Concordance

Gallery

File:Barthélémy Inscriptions phéniciennes.jpg, A page from Barthélemy's publication of his decipherment of Phoenician: "Inscriptions Phéniciennes, trouvées en Chypre par M Richard Pococke". No. 1 is Pococke's No. 2 (KAI 35), and No. 3 is Pococke's No. 4. The other two are Hebrew transliterations of the same inscriptions. File:Pococke Kition inscriptions in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, with concordance.jpg, Concordance with the

Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum The ("Corpus of Semitic Inscriptions", abbreviated CIS) is a collection of ancient inscriptions in Semitic languages produced since the end of 2nd millennium BC until the rise of Islam. It was published in Latin. In a note recovered after his de ...

(see table at bottom) File:The only surviving Pococke Kition inscription, as shown in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum (CIS I 46).jpg, The only surviving inscription, today at the

Notes

{{reflist, 35em 1738 archaeological discoveries Phoenician inscriptions Archaeological artifacts KAI inscriptions Archaeological discoveries in Cyprus