Tripolitania Punic inscriptions
Bilingual inscription at Leptis Magna
WritingPunic

The Tripolitania Punic inscriptions are a number of Punic language inscriptions found in the region of Tripolitania – specifically its three classical cities of Leptis Magna, Sabratha and Oea (Tripoli), with the vast majority being found in Leptis Magna. The inscriptions have been found in various periods over the last two centuries, and were catalogued by Giorgio Levi Della Vida. A subset of the inscriptions feature in all the major corpuses of Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, notably as KAI 119-132.

In addition to inscriptions in the Punic script, the corpus includes a number of Punic inscriptions written in Latin script, such as KAI 304-305.[1][2]

According to Karel Jongeling, 68 inscriptions are known from Lepcis Magna, 15 from Sabratha, 10 from Oea, 4 from Zaiuet el-Mahgiub, 3 from Wadi el-Amud, 2 from Germa and 1 each from El-Amruni, Gasr Doga, Bir Gebira, Bu Khemmàsc, Henchir Gen Rieime, Misurata Marina, Al-Qusbat, Ras el-Hadagia, Sàmet el-Crèma, Taglit and Tarhuna.[3]

Early discoveries

The two known Leptis Magna inscriptions published in Hendrik Arent Hamaker's 1828 Miscellanea Phoenicia
The two known Leptis Magna inscriptions published in Wilhelm Gesenius's 1837 Scripturae Linguaeque Phoeniciae Monumenta

Prior to 1927, only eight Punic inscriptions from all of Tripolitania had been published.[4]

The first find was in 1806 by Jacques-Denis Delaporte at Leptis Magna, published in his 1836 memoir:[5]

I turned south and climbed the remains of the temple of Friendship. I had barely reached the mound when I set foot upon a hard stone. The foreign characters under the Latin characters engraved on it made this monument so precious in my eyes, that I have not hesitated to include a copy of the inscription... It is a shame that it is only a fragment, because it could allow clarification of Punic or Phoenician writing, which is, I believe, that of this inscription, because lingua punica quidquid terraram est à Cyrene usque ad Gades occupavit... The stone is still on the spot: I have not urged the Americans to seize it, because it suits France better, if it is deemed worthy of adorning the Napoleon Museum.[6]

Delaporte identified the language as Punic by reference to a quote from Samuel Bochart's 1646 work Canaan, which translates in full as: "...the language of Canaan, whether Phoenician or Punic, which was brought from Phoenicia into Africa, and occupied all the world from Cyrene to Gades."[7]

By 1857, Moritz Abraham Levy stated that five inscriptions were known.[8]

Later discoveries

For forty years between 1927-1967, Giorgio Levi Della Vida worked to prepare a corpus of the Punic inscriptions in Tripolitania, intended as the Punic parallel of Joyce Reynolds' and John Bryan Ward-Perkins' The Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania (IRT). Levi Della Vida's corpus brought together research which has often appeared in periodicals that are not very accessible, sometimes defunct, and were not always accompanied by adequate photographic documentation.[9][10]

Concordance

Image Discovery date and location Punic concordance Latin (if bilingual) Current Location Other ref.
Tripolitania[11]Iscrizione Puniche della TripolitaniaKAI, CIS, NE[12]Levy 1857[13] IRT[14]
An inscription 1
An inscription 9I1
An inscription 10NE 434, B-aI2 [15]
An inscription 11I3
An inscription 12I4 655lost[16]
An inscription 13I5 654Red Castle Museum[17]
An inscriptionAn inscription

An inscriptionAn inscription

An inscriptionAn inscription

 1217KAI 130
An inscription 1318KAI 129
An inscription 1419KAI 131
An inscription 16 481
2721KAI 120 319Leptis Museum
2822KAI 122
2923KAI 123 Leptis Museum
An inscriptionAn inscription 3024a and 24bKAI 121 321-323in situ
25KAI 127 294
3126KAI 124 338
3227KAI 126 318, 347
3429KAI 128
3630KAI 125 305
3731KAI 119
An inscription 68KAI 132
1901, Breviglieri 76 KAI 118, RES 662 [18]
An inscription 82A-K
An inscription 96

Other

  • KAI 178 Leptis Magna Latino-Libyan [in LATIN]

Bibliography

  • Levi Della Vida, 1927: Giorgio Levi Della Vida Le iscrizioni neopuniche della tripolitania, Libya (Rivista didella Tripolitania) 1 (III) 1927 91-116
  • Levi Della Vida, 1935: Giorgio Levi Della Vida Due iscrizioni neopuniche di Leptis Magna, Africa Italiana 6 1935 3-15; 107-115
  • Levi Della Vida, 1938: Giorgio Levi Della Vida Il Teatro Augusteo di Leptis Magna secondo le ultime scoperte e un'iscrizione bilingue in latino e neo-punico II, Africa Italiana 6, 3-4 1935 (published 1938) 104-109
  • Levi Della Vida, 1942: Giorgio Levi Della Vida The Phoenician God Satrapes, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 87 1942 29-32
  • Levi Della Vida, 1949: Giorgio Levi Della Vida Iscrizioni neopuniche di Tripolitania, Rendiconti di Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 8 1949 399-412
  • Levi Della Vida, 1967: Giorgio Levi Della Vida Su una bilingue latino-punica da Leptis Magna, Atti dell'Accademia delle Scienze di Torino 101 1967 395-409
  • Levi Della Vida, 1987: Giorgio Levi Della Vida and Amadasi Guzzo, Iscrizione Puniche della Tripolitania, 1987
  • Barron, Caroline (2020-01-01). "Appendix: amator concordia, ornator patriae. The Latinisation of Punic titles in early imperial Lepcis Magna". Libyan Studies. doi:10.1017/lis.2020.7. S2CID 225723076. Retrieved 2022-10-06.

References

  1. ↑ Goodchild, R. G. (2011-11-29). "The Latino-Libyan Inscriptions of Tripolitania - The Antiquaries Journal". The Antiquaries Journal. 30 (3–4): 135–144. doi:10.1017/S0003581500087795. ISSN 1758-5309. S2CID 162787261. Retrieved 2022-05-31.
  2. ↑ Charles R. Krahmalkov. “A Reinterpretation of the Neo-Punic Inscription IRT 889 from Roman Tripolitania.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 93, no. 1, 1973, pp. 61–64. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/600518. Accessed 31 May 2022.
  3. ↑ Neo-punic inscriptions from Libya
  4. ↑ Levy Della Vida, 1927, page 92: "Non è inopportuno rammentare quali siano le iscrizioni neopuniche della Tripolitania finora pubblicate: esse non superano, come è stato detto sopra, il numero di otto."
  5. ↑ Reynolds, J. M. “Some Inscriptions from Lepcis Magna.” Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. 19, 1951, pp. 118–21. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40310492. Accessed 9 Oct. 2022.
  6. ↑ Delaporte (1836). Mémoire sur les ruines de Leptis Magna, régence de Tripolis de Barbarie: adressé en 1806 à M. le prince de Bénévent (in French). Impr. roy. pp. 13–14. Retrieved 2022-10-06. Je pris au sud et montai les débris du temple de l'Amitié. J'étais à peine arrivé sur la colline qu'ils forment, que je mis le pied sur une pierre dure. Les caractères étrangers placés sous les caractères latins qui y sont gravés ont rendu ce monument si précieux à mes yeux, que je n'hésite pas à en figurer l'inscription... Il est à regretter que ce ne soit qu'un fragment, car elle pourrait faire naître quelque éclaircissement sur l'écriture punique ou phénicienne, qui est, je crois, celle de cette inscription, parce que lingua punica quidquid terraram est à Cyrene usque ad Gades occupavit... La pierre est encore sur les lieux :je n'ai pas engagé les Américains à s'en saisir, parce qu'elle convient mieux à la France, si toutefois elle est jugée digne d'orner le musée Napoléon.
  7. ↑ Bochart, S. (1674). Geographia Sacra seu Phaleg et Canaan (in Latin). Impensis Johannis Davidis Zunneri. p. 66. Retrieved 2022-10-06. Tertia sit lingua Chanaan, sive Phænicum aut Punica, quæ ex Phænice in Africam perlata est, & occupavit quicquid terrarum est à Cyrene usque ad Gades.
  8. ↑ Phönizische Studien von M. A. Levy (in German). F. E. C. Leuckart. 1857. p. 88. Retrieved 2022-10-12.
  9. ↑ Vida, G.L.D.; Amadasi, M.G.; Guzzo, M.G.A. (1987). Iscrizioni puniche della Tripolitania (1927-1967) (PDF). Monografie di archeologia libica (in Italian). "L'Erma" di Bretschneider. pp. 15–16. ISBN 978-88-7062-612-4. Retrieved 2022-10-12. Nel corso degli ultimi anni del proprio lavoro scientifico, G. Levi Della Vida si era dedicato, in particolare, alla raccolta in un piccolo Corpus delle iscrizioni in caratteri punici e neopunici rinvenute nella region tripolitana e da lui già edite per la massima parte nel corso dei lunghi anni della sua attività. La scomparsa dello studioso arrestò il compimento di quest'opera, che era intesa come il « parallelo » punico della raccolta di J. M. REYNOLDS e J. B. WARD - PERKINS, The Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania, Rome-London, 1952 (IRT). L'utilità del lavoro è evidente: le edizioni di G. Levi Della Vida sono spesso apparse in periodici poco accessibili, a volte estinti, e non sempre sono accompagnate da un'adeguata documentazione fotografica;
  10. ↑ Jongeling, K.; Kerr, R.M. (2005). Late Punic Epigraphy: An Introduction to the Study of Neo-Punic and Latino-Punic Inscriptions. Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 978-3-16-148728-6. Retrieved 2022-10-12.
  11. ↑ Tripolitania, in Dictionnaire des Inscriptions Sémitiques de l'Ouest
  12. ↑ Mark Lidzbarski, 1898: Handbuch der Nordsemitischen Epigraphik, nebst ausgewählten Inschriften: I Text and II Plates
  13. ↑ Phönizische Studien von M. A. Levy (in German). Vol. 2. F. E. C. Leuckart. 1857. p. 88. Retrieved 2022-10-06.
  14. ↑ Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania, 2009
  15. ↑ Jongeling, Karel. “IPT 10.” Orientalia, vol. 76, no. 1, 2007, pp. 47–52. JSTOR, JSTOR 43077607. Accessed 13 Oct. 2022.
  16. ↑ "Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania: 655".
  17. ↑ "Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania: 654".
  18. ↑ https://base-map-polytheisms.huma-num.fr/source/553
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