Tabnit ( Phoenician: 𐤕𐤁𐤍𐤕 ''TBNT'') was the

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 ...

King of Sidon The King of Sidon was the ruler of Sidon, an ancient Phoenician city in what is now Lebanon. Scholars have pieced together the fragmented list from various archaeological finds since the 19th century. Egyptian period * c.1700s BC Zimrida * c. 13 ...

549–539 BC. He was the father of King

Eshmunazar II Eshmunazar II (; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤔𐤌𐤍𐤏𐤆𐤓, ', ) was the Phoenician king of Sidon (). He was the grandson of Eshmunazar I, and a vassal king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. Eshmunazar II succeeded his father Tabnit I who r ...

. He is well known from his sarcophagus, decorated with two separate and unrelated inscriptions – one in

Egyptian hieroglyphics Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters.I ...

and one in

Phoenician script 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 found ...

. It was created in the 6th century BC, and was unearthed in 1887 by

Osman Hamdi Bey Osman Hamdi Bey (30 December 1842 – 24 February 1910) was an Ottoman Turkish administrator, intellectual, art expert and also a prominent and pioneering painter. He was the Ottoman Empire's first modern archaeologist, and is regarded as the ...

at the Ayaa Necropolis near

Sidon Sidon ( ) or better known as Saida ( ; ) is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast in the South Governorate, Lebanon, South Governorate, of which it is the capital. Tyre, Lebanon, Tyre, t ...

together with the

Alexander Sarcophagus The Alexander Sarcophagus is a late 4th century BC Hellenistic stone sarcophagus from the Royal necropolis of Ayaa near Sidon, Lebanon. It is adorned with high relief carvings of Alexander the Great and scrolling historical and mythological na ...

and other related sarcophagi. Tabnit's body was found floating in the original

embalming fluid Embalming chemicals are a variety of preservatives, sanitising and disinfectant agents, and additives used in modern embalming to temporarily prevent decomposition and restore a natural appearance for viewing a body after death in funeral homes. ...

and almost perfectly preserved, save for the face and neck which were not submerged, but Bey's men spilled all the fluid and left the body to rot in the desert sun, at which point it quickly decomposed to little more than bones and withered viscera. Both the sarcophagus and Tabnit's decomposed skeleton are now in the

Istanbul Archaeology Museums The Istanbul Archaeology Museums () are a group of three archaeological museums located in the Eminönü quarter of Istanbul, Turkey, near Gülhane Park and Topkapı Palace. These museums house over one million objects from nearly all periods an ...

.İstanbul Archaeological Museums
/ref> The sarcophagus, together with the

Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II The sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II is a 6th-century BC sarcophagus unearthed in 1855 in the grounds of an ancient necropolis southeast of the city of Sidon, in modern-day Lebanon, that contained the body of Eshmunazar II ( Phoenician: , ), Phoe ...

, was possibly acquired by the Sidonians following their participation in the

Battle of Pelusium (525 BC) The Battle of Pelusium was the first major battle between the Achaemenid Empire and Egypt. This decisive battle transferred the throne of the Pharaohs to Cambyses II of Persia, marking the beginning of the Achaemenid Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egy ...

, and served as models for later Phoenician sarcophagi.

Dating

Both the Tabnit sarcophagus and the

are thought to originally date from the

Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt The Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XXVI, alternatively 26th Dynasty or Dynasty 26) was the last native dynasty of ancient Egypt before the Persian conquest in 525 BC (although other brief periods of rule by Egyptians followed). T ...

, which had its capital at

Sais Sais (, ) was an ancient Egyptian city in the Western Nile Delta on the Canopic branch of the Nile,Mish, Frederick C., Editor in Chief. "Saïs." '' Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary''. 9th ed. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster Inc., 19 ...

. This is partially due to their resemblance to similar sarcophagi such as the

Psamtik II Psamtik II (Ancient Egyptian: , pronounced ), known by the Graeco-Romans as Psammetichus or Psammeticus, was a king of the Saite-based Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (595 BC – 589 BC). His prenomen, Nefer-Ib-Re, means "Beautiful s theHeart ...

-era Horkhebit sarcophagus from

Saqqara Saqqara ( : saqqāra ), also spelled Sakkara or Saccara in English , is an Egyptian village in the markaz (county) of Badrashin in the Giza Governorate, that contains ancient burial grounds of Egyptian royalty, serving as the necropolis for ...

, now in the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

. File:Osman Hamdi Bey. Squelette du roi Tabuit. Paris, 1892.jpg, Skeleton of king Tabnit File:Osman Hamdi Bey. Crâne du roi Tabnit (№ 1). 2 sides. Paris, 1892.jpg, Head of king Tabnit

Notes

References

* * (

editio princeps In Textual scholarship, textual and classical scholarship, the ''editio princeps'' (plural: ''editiones principes'') of a work is the first printed edition of the work, that previously had existed only in manuscripts. These had to be copied by han ...

) * (

Plates Plate may refer to: Cooking * Plate (dishware), broad, mainly flat vessel commonly used to serve food * Plates, tableware, dishes or dishware used for setting a table, serving food and dining * Plate, the content of such a plate (for example: ...

) * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tennes 6th-century BC monarchs in Asia Kings of Sidon Vassals of the Achaemenid Empire 6th-century BC Phoenician people