Baal Lebanon inscription

Baal Lebanon inscription
	The inscription
Material	Bronze
Writing	Phoenician
Created	8th century BCE
Discovered	1881
Present location	Cabinet des Médailles, Paris

The Baal Lebanon inscription, known as KAI 31, is a Phoenician inscription found in Limassol, Cyprus in eight bronze fragments in the 1870s. At the time of their discovery, they were considered to be the second most important finds in Semitic palaeography after the Mesha stele.[1]

It was purchased in 1876 by Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau from a Limassol merchant named Laniti.

It is the only Phoenician inscription to suggest a "colonial" system amongst the Phoenician domains.[2]

Gallery

The fragments as first published by Renan
Reconstruction (with two pieces which do not fit)
Transcription

Notes

Clermont Ganneau, 1880, p.181, "My own observations may, perhaps, serve to confirm the truth of the remark of M. Renan about the palaeographical rank of these fragments, "which may claim the second place, immediately after the Moabite Stone," and to show that their historical is not under their palaeographical value."
Nathan Pilkington (4 October 2019). The Carthaginian Empire: 550–202 BCE. Lexington Books. p. 126. ISBN 978-1-4985-9053-2. In contrast, other scholars have argued that Phoenician colonies may have been governed by the mother city, at least during the earliest colonial period. The position is based on the interpretation of KAI 31, an 8th century BCE inscription found in Cyprus. The text records: ’סכן קרתחדשת עבד חרם מלך צדנם‘ ‘Governor of the New City, servant of Hiram, the King of the Sidonians.’ From this inscription, therefore, it is possible to argue that the Tyrian King possessed a regular system of colonial administration that centered on the presence of a designated Soken/Governor. It must be noted that KAI 31 is the only inscription of this type. No similar inscription inscription has been found in the Phoenician colonies in the western Mediterranean. Because Cyprus was the most proximate colonial sphere to the Phoenicia, it is possible that Phoenician polities exercised forms of direct administration in Cyprus that were not possible in more distant colonial foundations.

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References

E. Renan. Notice sur huit fragments de pateres de bronze portant des inscriptions pheniciennes tres-anciennes: Journal des savants, August 1877, p. 487—494 (1 PL).
Templum Baalis ad Libanum, Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, volume I
Isaac Taylor, The Alphabet: An Account of the Origin and Development of Letters, 1883, pages 210–
Clermont-Ganneau, HIRAM, KING OF TYRE, the Atheneum, April 17, 1880

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[1] Clermont Ganneau, 1880, p.181, "My own observations may, perhaps, serve to confirm the truth of the remark of M. Renan about the palaeographical rank of these fragments, "which may claim the second place, immediately after the Moabite Stone," and to show that their historical is not under their palaeographical value."

[Pilkington2019-2] Nathan Pilkington (4 October 2019). The Carthaginian Empire: 550–202 BCE. Lexington Books. p. 126. ISBN 978-1-4985-9053-2. In contrast, other scholars have argued that Phoenician colonies may have been governed by the mother city, at least during the earliest colonial period. The position is based on the interpretation of KAI 31, an 8th century BCE inscription found in Cyprus. The text records: ’סכן קרתחדשת עבד חרם מלך צדנם‘ ‘Governor of the New City, servant of Hiram, the King of the Sidonians.’ From this inscription, therefore, it is possible to argue that the Tyrian King possessed a regular system of colonial administration that centered on the presence of a designated Soken/Governor. It must be noted that KAI 31 is the only inscription of this type. No similar inscription inscription has been found in the Phoenician colonies in the western Mediterranean. Because Cyprus was the most proximate colonial sphere to the Phoenicia, it is possible that Phoenician polities exercised forms of direct administration in Cyprus that were not possible in more distant colonial foundations.