Tel Siran bottle at the Jordan Archaeological Museum

The Tel Siran inscription is an inscription on a bronze bottle (or "

situla Situla (plural ''situlae''), from the Latin word for bucket or pail, is the term in archaeology and art history for a variety of elaborate bucket-shaped vessels from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages, usually with a handle at the top. All types ...

") found at Tel Siran on the campus of the

University of Jordan The University of Jordan (), often abbreviated UJ or JU, is a public university located in Amman, Jordan. Founded in 1962, and it is the largest and oldest institution of higher education in Jordan. It is located in the capital Amman in the J ...

Amman Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant ...

). It was first published on 27 April 1972. It is considered the first complete inscription in the "

Ammonite language Ammonite is the extinct Canaanite language of the Ammonite people mentioned in the Bible, who used to live in modern-day Jordan, and after whom its capital Amman is named. Only fragments of their language survive—chiefly the 9th century BC Am ...

". The bronze bottle is now in the

Jordan Archaeological Museum The Jordan Archaeological Museum is located in the Citadel of Amman, Jordan. Built in 1951, it presents artifacts from archaeological sites in Jordan, dating from prehistoric times up to the 15th century. The collections are arranged in chronolo ...

. It is known as KAI 308.

Description

The well preserved bronze bottle is about ten centimeters long and weighs about 280 grams. The clearly legible inscription is on the outside. The archaeological context suggests that the bottle was in use until the

Mamluk period The Mamluk Sultanate (), also known as Mamluk Egypt or the Mamluk Empire, was a state that ruled medieval Egypt, Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz from the mid-13th to early 16th centuries, with Cairo as its capital. It was ruled by a military c ...

. The bottle is considered to have been made in the

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 progre ...

II period, which would suggest use for 2,000 years. The contents of the bottle were seeds of barley, wheat and grass, as well as unidentifiable metal remains. A C14 analysis found the content to be about 460 BC.

The inscription

The inscription consists of eight lines of legible text. They are attached in the direction from the opening of the bottle to its bottom. Line four protrudes into this floor, while line 5 only contains a single word. It has been translated as: F. Zayadine and H. O. Thompson, the first editors, referred to the script as

Aramaic script Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written an ...

and dated the inscription paleographically to the first half of the 7th century BC. F. M. Cross, on the other hand, sees the inscription as the latest stage of development of the "

" and dates it to around 600 BC for paleographic reasons.COMMENTARY ON THE TELL SIRAN INSCRIPTION, HENRY O. THOMPSON
"The initial study suggested that the text was in the Phoenician script which relates directly to Dr. Frank Cross' judgment that the script and language are pure Canaanite. A detailed survey of published inscriptions shows that the Siran script is closest to Aramaic of c. 700 B.C. However, Cross (who is undoubtedly the world's leading expert in ancient Near East epigraphy), claims that Ammonite had an independent development from the parent Aramaic from c. 750 on. Diagnostic forms fell 100 years behind so that the Siran inscription dates c. 600 B.C. shortly before this Ammonite script was destroyed by the Babylonians and replaced by Aramaic. What is not clear in his discussion is when does a branch of Aramaic become pure Canaanite and how does a conquering army destroy a script?"

References

{{reflist Archaeological artifacts Ancient Near East KAI inscriptions 1st-century BC inscriptions Archaeological discoveries in Jordan 20th-century archaeological discoveries