MAARAV 14.

2 (2007): 726

THE PHOENICIAN INSCRIPTION OF THE

INCIRLI TRILINGUAL: A TENTATIVE
RECONSTRUCTION AND TRANSLATION

STEPHEN A. KAUFMAN
HEBREW UNION COLLEGE, CINCINNATI

The Incirli Stela was discovered by University of California, Los An-

geles archaeologist Elizabeth Carter in 1993 during a routine regional
survey of the Kharamanmarash (ancient Marash) region of Turkey. It
was found in a private garden, where it had been exposed to the ele-
ments for an unknown period of time. Details on the discovery, photo-
graphs, and a discussion of the archaeological and art-historical
contexts have long been available on the web site of her university de-
partment, currently http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/nelc/stelasite.
The stela is currently located in the antiquities museum at Gaziantep,
where, in the autumns of 1995 and 1996 West Semitic Research under-
took two missions to produce a detailed photographic record. This
author participated in the second mission.
Since that time, I have been working closely with Dr. Bruce Zucker-
man of West Semitic Research and the University of Southern Califor-
nia, with the goal of publishing a joint and complete editio princeps of
1
the Phoenician text of this apparently trilingual inscription.
The purpose of the current study is to fill the current lacuna and pro-
vide interested semitists and historians of the first millennium B.C.E .

1
Due to illnesses, deaths, and the other mundane inconveniences of everyday life, our
joint effort has been delayed far beyond its originally envisaged time-frame, although
preliminary readings and reports were presented, both jointly and independently, at sev-
eral international scholarly meetings and other venues during this period.
7
8 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

with the current state of my reading of this very important, albeit frag-
mentary, Phoenician text.2
The inscription is extremely weathered and, for the most part, next to
impossible to read with the naked eye. Nonetheless, several things were
clear from the beginning: a) there had been text on all four sides of this
stela; b) the text on the top to the right of the image, for two lines im-
mediately below the image, and on the top half of the right-hand side
was written with dividing lines, as was the regular practice with Hiero-
glyphic Luwian and Assyrian inscriptions on stone from this period.
The traces of signs make it quite clear that the top-right portion consist-
ed of hieroglyphics, the two-line and right-side portions of Neo-Assyri-
an cuneiform;3 c) the remaining text was in Phoenician script and
written without dividing lines, as was the practice in most, but not all,
monumental Phoenician texts from these times; d) the back top half of
the stone had also been reused in late Antiquity as a boundary-stone
() inscription in carelessly scrawled (can inscribed letters be
deemed to be scrawled?), enormous majuscule Greek.
During the first mission to the museum, the photographic team from
West Semitic Research used their unique techniques of varied lighting,
film types, and aperture settings on the stone, dividing each side of the
text into thirds for the detail shots. After viewing high-resolution digi-
tized images and transparencies of these photographs, I was able to de-
termine that the inscription was obviously a very important one, in spite
of its weathered and fragmentary nature. References to the King of the
Danunites, Tiglath-Pilesar, king of Assyria, and, almost certainly,
the infamous molkomor sacrifice of the Phoenicians along with repeat-
ed references to the killing of royal sons made this clear, but it was
equally clear that more detailed images were required of most of the
text. Hence the second mission which took photographs with varied
lighting of roughly one foot by one foot sections of the stone.4

2
Grammatical references for Phoenician are to the latest edition of PPG, the standard
in the field: J. Friedrich and W. Rllig, Phnizisch-punische Grammatik: 3. Auflage, neu
bearbeitet von Maria Giulia Amadasi Guzzo, unter Mitarbeit von Werner R. Mayer (AO
55; Rome: PBI, 1999). The recent grammar by C. R. Krahmalkov, A Phoenician-Punic
Grammar (HdO 54; Leiden: Brill, 2001) is a wonderful resource for its mastery of Punic
materials in Latin transcription, but is otherwise of minimal value.
3
The author has attempted to reconstruct the two-line introductory cuneiform section
using the computer techniques we have successfully applied to the Phoenician, and a very
hypothectical suggested reading will be supplied in the editio princeps. The Luwian hi-
eroglyphs and the cuneiform on the right hand side appear to be beyond salvage with cur-
rent imaging techniques.
4
All of these photographs will be made available in high-resolution format for public
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL 9

Using the digitized images, computer enhancement and many

hundreds of hours of close study, we were eventually able to familiar-
ize ourselves with the ductus of the text, both in terms of the various
shapes of the letters themselves, but, perhaps even more importantly,
the relatively minute differences between the various portions of such
similar letters as re and dalet; mem, nun, pe and kap; in and ade; he
and et; as well as the letter-spacing, stance, and line-widths, all of
which tended to vary from side to side because of the different amount
of text inscribed on each of the respective sides. Since often only the
slightest curve or line-fragment of a particular letter is preserved, this
kind of familiarity proved to be essential for what we are calling the
decipherment. Thus the decipherment proceeded by a puzzle-solving
kind of process wherein possible letter assignments were correlated
with possible words in the language and acceptable syntagms in a
reasonable context for such a monumental inscription to create a
reasonable, albeit still uncertain, reading.5
The historical context of our inscription is now certain. It is an in-
scription of the by now well-known King of the Danunites, Awarikku,
stemming from an outcome of the famous rebellion of western states
led by Matiel of Arpad (along with Urartu) against Tiglath-Pilesar III in
the late 740s B.C.E. (and thus probably antedates the famous Karatepe
inscriptions by at least a generationa conclusion clearly supported by
script typology). In contrast with the assumption of previous scholars,
our text insists that Que (i.e., the King of the Danunites) remained loyal
to Assyria during these events and was rewarded with an annexation of
territory at the expense of neighboring Kummuh.6
The issue of the sacrifice of royal offspring in a crisis is clearly dealt
with at great length in our text. (Compare the actions of the King of
Moab recounted in 2 Kgs 2:27.) Unfortunately, the precise details of

consultation on the Inscriptifact internet database application of the West Semitic Re-
search Project (see www.inscriptifact.com for more information).
5
True, the context of our text is rather unique in its own way among ancient West Se-
mitic monuments, due to its lengthy inserted quotation, but it still typologically conforms
to the greatest extent with other lengthy stela texts such as that of Mesha: a) introduction;
b) historical background; c) narrative; d) curses.
6
Previous interpretations of events are essentially based on fragmentary information,
i.e., the fact that after crushing the revolt, all of the Neo-Hiitite rulers (including Urikku
of Que) are listed together as paying tribute to Tiglath-Pilesar in his inscriptions. Cf., for
example, Encyclopedia Brittanica Macropedia vol. 28 (2007): 938b (online: http:/
/www.britannica.com/eb/article-44354/Anatolia); J. D. Hawkins, Some Historical Prob-
lems of the Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions, Anatolian Studies 29 (1979): 154.
10 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

the particular case are not clear, but the clear use of the terms rzg, jbz
and rpk are very intriguing. A possible relationship with Punic
molkomor (and the almost certainly cognate term Molek in Judean bib-
lical sources) is tantalizing but, unfortunately, by no means certain.
Herewith, then, the current state of my transcription and suggestions
for translation of this monument. They are not intended to be definitive,
for I suspect that the readings for much of the text shall never be close-
to-certain unless some new, high-tech measurement, photographic, and
computer manipulation technologies become realistically available to
be applied to our stela. I have included scattered notes and comments,
but leave the complete elucidation of both the historical context and
necessary revisions to our conceptions of the nature of child sacrifice in
the ancient Levant for those better qualified to analyze such material at
their leisure.
There are so many different degrees of certainty (or more often, un-
certainty) in the reading of the letters of this text that it is literally im-
possible to come up with an adequate system to indicate the various
states of textual preservation or lack thereof. I have thus adopted the
following system to give somewhat of an indication of my certitude: A
solid black letter is roughly 80%100% certain. An underscored letter
is similarly certain but admittedly only fragmentary, justified by defini-
tive visible segments. A hollow letter is much more uncertain, but re-
constructed from available spacing and from context. A hollow letter
with underscore is similarly uncertain, but is read based on substantive
physical traces. Illegible letters are indicated with a period. Square
brackets surround broken areas of text, and alternative readings are in-
dicated by slashes. (Parentheses surround alternative readings longer
than one letter.) There are no word dividers in the text, but the small
vertical lines used as phrase dividers as in many other texts of this peri-
od are here indicated with a vertical bar.
A complete study of the epigraphic character of the text, along with
requisite drawings and charts, is being prepared by Bruce Zuckerman.
Nonetheless, a few notes are perhaps necessary here: The monument as
a whole does not give the impression of an elegant hand; nonetheless,
much of that may be an artifact of the highly irregular and inconsistent
state of the texts preservation. Adjacent letters may well have suffered
totally different kinds of erosion, so that the baselines and stances of
the several neighboring letters can appear to be a bit different one from
the other. Adding to this is the fact that traces of one letter may be visi-
ble only when lit from the right, those of another only when lit from the
left. Obviously their relative positions will appear to jump when com-
bined photographically. The ideal Gestalt of each letter shape, howev-
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL 11

er, is clearly rather elegant, with a cursive swoop of the long strokes
giving the ductus a rather distinct calligraphic feel while remaining
well centered within the typological series of eighth-century
Phoenician.
Here is a highly simplified chart of those ideal forms as derived from
our familiarity with the ductus. Note especially the heart-shaped top of
the qop, which careful review of the photographic evidence will
demonstrate is in fact much more frequent in eighth century Phoenician
texts than the simplified hand drawings of the standard handbooks nor-
mally show.7 A further characteristic of the ductus is that verticals of
the he, et, and especially nun (and the middle fork of mem) often
slightly overshoot their theoretical intersection points with horizontals
(both on the top and bottoms of letters) and similarly with the horizon-
tals vis-a-vis the verticals in the case of he, bet, and yod, but again
much of this may be due to the fact that in most cases we are viewing
deep and irregular remaining layers of the stone sub-surface rather than
the way the letters appeared on the original smooth surface.

FRONT (PLS. IIIVI)



 
 
 /   .1
  | 
 
 .2
       
/ .3
[
] 
 
   
.4
 []   []  |  
.5
  

  
/ .6
  
    .7

7
The ductus might be styled a cross between that of the Aramaic treaty from Sfire (not
surprising, since it is from Matiel, the other party to our inscription!) and that of Karate-
pe. In other words, even without any historical context its script would date it to the third
quarter of the eighth century B.C.E. in northwest Syria. When the data is extensive, as in
the case of those two inscriptions, the typological approach can be useful! Unfortunately
such is usually not the case for early Northwest Semitic epigraphic texts.
12 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

[]     
 
[
] [] .8
   
   
 [] [ ]  .9
   ()/()      .10

   []     .11

      
.12

/   ( )/(
) /
   .13
[]
/
  
    .14
..[/]

 
 
 
[...] .15

LEFT SIDE (PLS. VIIX)

/
    .1
 
  .2
[]
    .3
[]
   .4
 
   .5
[.]

 
 .6

 
 .7
[
]  
 .8
[
]
 
[] .9


    .10

   
.11

 . . . .12
(
)/(
)    .13
. . 
  /
.14
/
  .15

 

 .16
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL 13

 
    .17
. . 

 .18
   .19


 .20

 

 .21




  .22

 

 .23
[. . .]  

 .24
 
  
.25

   .26
[. . . . .]
  .27

BACK (PLS. XIXIV)

(Only the traces of isolated signs remain visible in lines 15, due to the
deeply cut out areas of the large Greek letters of the late re-use of the
stone.)

[]  
/ 

 .1

 . . . . . . . . . . .../ .2
  
  
 . . . .3
 . . . .  . . . . . . . . . .4
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
 
 
 [
. . . . . . . . . .] .6
 
  
  . . . . . . .7
[ . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .] .8
[. ] . .  [ . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .] .9
[]
   

  . . . . . [. . . . ] .10


 
 
  [. . . . .] .11
14 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

[]   |   [. . . . . . . .] .12
    . . . . . .  .13
 <<
>>{{}}
    (. . . .) .14
  
 . . . . . . . . . . . .15

 /


 [. . . . ] .16
 
 
 . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
 |   
[ . . . ] .18
 / |  ( )/()    .19
..  |       .20
    

.21
 /   
 .22
     
[ ] .23
 

  [. . .] .24
. .  . . . .. .  [ . . .] .25
[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .] .26

RIGHT SIDE (PLS. XVXVI)

(The text begins approximately two-thirds of the way down, right

above a large rope or chain damage.)

   . . . .1
. . .  .  . . .2
 
   .3
  |  .4
   .5

  
 .6


 .7
. . . . . . . . .8
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL 15

TRANSLATION

(Italics indicate uncertain areas)

FRONT

(The Object)

(1) This frontier region is the gift of Tiglath-Pilesar, Puwal, King of As-
syria, (2) to the king and dynasty of the king of the Danunites.

(The Background)

The said frontier has been the border between the (3) land/province of
Beyond-the-River and Kummuh from the days of Shamshi-Addad, King
of (4) Assyria, until all the days of Tiglath-Pilesar, Puwal, the great
King of (5) Assyria.
This frontier region is the boundary between mount Gurgum and my
province (6) this/that new one up to where the Assyrian province abuts
this boundary through this (7) region of the Turtanus dynasty along
(or: from the entrance to/of?) the river Sinis, all the way to (8) Mount
Urartu.

(The Maker)

I am Warikkus, King of the dynasty of Mopsos, (9) servant of King

Tiglath-Pilesar the King of Assyria, King of Que, (10) King of the
dynasty of Mopsos, and the entire Hittite country/province up until
Lebanon.

(The story)

(a. The revolt and the substitute)

(11) There was a rebellion through the Hittite country, and the King of
Arpad sacrificed (12) for the benefit of Hadad-Melek (or: for the pur-
pose of a molk-offering for Hadad), and redeemed [the human sacri-
fice] with butchered animal parts, because Arpad (13) feared (a living
molkomor)/(the King of Assyria. He [the wise man] arose) and a wise
man gave advice as follows: (14) According to the law of the King of
Arpad and Aleppo, do not sacrifice a human-being (15) . . . do not fear,
rather offer a substitute that your province he not destr[oy . . . ]
16 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

(b. The King [of Assyria?] renders judgment, quoting the violated
treaty stipulations)

LEFT

. . . (1) thus/there was, because you would rebel at the command of a

foreigner; (2) (who has betrayed)/(by betraying) me and renouncing the
covenant of alliance (3) of the King of the Danunites:
(4) Arpad has betrayed with the treaty-violation of a traitor, (5) one
who has/he had mercy on his son or daughter (6) lest he die. (7) Matiel,
King of Arpad, must not . . . (8) for his son or his sons son, (9) his
flesh-and-blood, or his fathers house/daughter. (10) Every king,
whether he curse (11) or is a deceitful rebel, (12) . . . Arpad blas-
phemed. (13) Why do you deny? He is/ You are an enemy. (14) O/For
the King of Arpad . . . (15) Matiel betrayed with/until his flesh-and-
blood and his province (17) against the King of the Danunites, for/when
(18) Arpad came (19) and stripped the borders (20) to the end. I shall
judge Arpad (21) like Assyria. Be it his son, or his sons son, or flesh-
and-blood (22) kin, or the house/daughter of flesh- (23) and-blood kin.
For/Here your son . . . (25) O, King of the Danunites. This one/the one
who (26) rebels against the King of Assyria, upon his son . . . . .

BACK

(1) Do not, do not bring it over to the kings family (2) . . . . . .

(c. Our heros deeds in the war against the rebels)

. . . (3) Tiglath-Pilesar, Pual; for horse and chariot (4) . . . . . . . crisis

(5) . . . . . . . (6) . . . . . . . Matiel, King of Arpad (7) . . . Tiglath-Pilesar,
Pual, you revolted against us/him (8) . . . . . . . . . . opened (9) . . . . . . . . .
. . . . (10) . . . . . . King of Assyria or King of Que o[r] (11) . . . . . . King
of Assyria saw his/my kingdom and gave (12) . . . . horse and chariot
And in all the border regions of (13) Que . . . . and I pursued and
killed, and (14) . . . and Shamash and the Lord of Heaven and El Cre-
ator of the World and [another god] cut off (15) . . . . . . from the mouth
of Assur and Marduk and (16) . . . I also mounted/felled them and de-
voted them (17) . . . . . . . . I . . .ed them, Danunites and (18) . . . in the
place where they stood and they were destroyed.
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL 17

(d. His acts as victor in this region)

Then I ordered him (19) to the duty of charcoal, sack and the duty/
production of iron.
On the border I installed (20) a prefect over every archer/arrow, and
cavalry general.
Then I mined (21) the treasure lands and beneath every tombstone.
(22) And I turned a hidden place into a strong fortification (23) for the
people. Even all the families of the Hittites and the families of all (24) .
. . . and the families of all the lands of Assyria. All (25) . . . families . . .
......

RIGHT

(The curse)

(1) . . . . King of Que (2) . . .[may invoke against him] (3) any King of
Assyria or (4) general: Nergal of the plague; and burn up totally (6) in
the fire his family members, and residents of his land . . .

EPIGRAPHIC COMMENTARY

(All images are courtesy of West Semitic Research.)

Line 1: The first three words of the Phoenician text are all somewhat
outsized, a phenomenon also demonstrated by the first words of the re-
cently discovered, related ineky bilingual inscription.8 This would
appear to be a rubric, a literal parallel (i.e., the use of red ink as a
highlight) for which can be found in the roughly contemporary plaster
text from Deir Alla (KAI 312).
Gift: read either  , , or  . I prefer simply  . All three
forms are attested in Phoenician. See DNWSI, 709. A reading of the
ubiquitous  obviously suggests itself but makes little sense in con-
text. (If adopted, though, it would have to be taken as a verb: ruled.)
Herewith a close-up view (the preceding and following letters are
blacked in to help with the identification and spacing):

8
R. Tekolu and A. Lemaire, La bilingue royale louvito-phnicienne de ineky,
CRAIBL fasc. 3 (2000): 9611006.
18 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

Puwal: The well-known  of the Bible. But the spelling here
with medial alep is clear and repeated. The examples on the front
could with difficulty be made out to be read ; but the spelling is
quite clear from the example on l. 7 of the back (unenhanced view):

Line 4:

: The spacing is a bit too wide for just these three letters. I
would prefer to be able to read

, but there does not seem to be
enough for that. See philological note to line 11.

Line 13: 
, or simply read

, The King of Assyria, in
which case the following word is  he arose. In other words, he
made an offering because he felt in extremis from Assyria. Herewith
the image with alep and re enhanced for identification:
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL 19

Line 15: Read either 

or 
. Either would mean something like
let him not destroy in this context. This is a key phrase in the text.
Unfortunately the reading possibilities are numerous. Other possible re-
constructions are: 
(let him not) kill, 
(let him not) cease
(or cause to be eliminated?), 
(let him not) overturn, 
(let
him not) desire.

LEFT

Line 2: : The third letter looks like a perfect zayin at first glance,
which would allow the barely possible reading , to be angry. What
is required by context, of course, is our reading. One must ignore the
overly-deep t-shaped hole on the top of the horizontal, and then the
dalet appears clearly:

Unenhanced image Image showing the dalet

BACK

Line 13: : The pe seems to be written over a deeply incised gimel
or vice-versa, but  is an impossible sequence. It could be a visual
artifact of erosion, or the stone cutter made a mistake and first inscribed
the gimel thinking he was in the row immediately above while copying
from his draft. Those who insist on gimel might read perhaps  ,
from , to incite, or the like.

Line 14: <<
>>{{}}
: The scribe first wrote re without alep,
no doubt much as the divine name was pronounced, then revised the re
into an oversized alep and continued.

Line 20:  : This word has been almost totally destroyed by a deep
rope burn, but a verb is required, and the traces fit this reading.
20 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTS

Line 1: : I.e., Tiglath-pilesar III (Tukulti-Apil-Earra, ruled

744727 B.C.E.), spelled variously elsewhere in Northwest Semitic
texts, this spelling (occurring several times more in our text) reflects a
level of scholarly knowledge of Akkadian/Assyrian orthography un-
matched in other text traditions.9
/: Pu/wal: See Tadmors massive study10 for the most recent
discussion of this nickname of the Assyrian king. In the Bible it is
spelled , vocalized pl. Were this in fact the correct pronunciation,
we would have expected to find simply  in the consonant-only
Phoenician text. The only vocalization that comports with both North-
west Semitic spellings is something like Pual/Puwal, with the intervo-
calic glide written either as waw or alep (for which note the Greek
transliteration 
[ ] [BDB 806b]; see, too, the later Greek corruption
of the name, given as the name of the contemporary ruler of Tyre:
 ,  11). In any case, perhaps the voice of our inscription can
finally quiet those misguided proponents of biblical inerrancy who still
argue that Pul and Tiglathpilesar were different kings.12

Line 3: : Kummuh, restored largely from context. Incirli is located

close to what must have been a somewhat fluctuating intersection of the
territory of the four main Neo-Hittite states of this region, i.e., Que,

9
The Biblical spelling  at 2 Kgs 16:7 is paralleled in Samalian (KAI 215
tris; also there attested as  with the long  vowel of Assyrian indicated by a
vowel letter) and constitutes a purely phonetic spelling with the following Neo-Assyrian
characteristics: post-vocalic k is vocalized to g,  and s are reversed vis-a-vis Babylonian
(both phenomena are represented in the well-known royal name Sargon [arrukn]), and
post-consonantal glottal stop is not heard (see Stephen A. Kaufman, The Akkadian Influ-
ences on Aramaic [The Oriental Institute Assyriological Studies 19; Chicago/London:
Univ. of Chicago, 1974]: passim). The other known Iron Age spellings would seem to
represent incomplete accommodations to the learned spelling illustrated by our text; cf.
Assur Ostracon (KAI 233:15)  and biblical  .
10
H. Tadmor, The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III, King of Assyria (Jerusalem: Pub-
lications of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1994): 280 n. 5. Apparently,
then, the uncertain cuneiform writings like pu-lu, etc., should not be identified as being
our man! Writings with an interior glottal syallable (pu-x-lu) are all right.
11
J. K. Kuan, Neo-Assyrian Historical Inscriptions and Syria-Palestine: Israelite/
Judean-Tyrian-Damascene Political and Commercial Relations in the NinthEighth Cen-
turies BCE (JDDS 1; Hong Kong: Alliance Bible Seminary, 1995): 198.
12
See the discussion of this silliness in Steven W. Holloway, Aur is King! Aur is
King! Religion in the Exercise of Power in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (Leiden: Brill,
2002): n. 38.
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL 21

Samal, Gurgum, and Kummuh. The larger region encompassing them

all is referred to as Hittite Country,  , i.e., Akkadian mt hatti,
in our text (l. 11). Given the central role of Kummuh in the affairs of
743 B.C.E. according the the Assyrian royal annals, its mention here in
particular makes all the more sense.

: from the days of. The sequence  . . . 
is standard for
from . . . until. Cf. the often repeated expression at Karatepe (KAI 26)

  

.
  : I.e., SamsiAdad V (823811 21).

Line 4: Compare the context to the beginning of Meshas Moabite In-

scription (KAI 181): Omri had possessed all the land of Medeba and
dwelt in it for his days and half the days of his sonforty years.

Line 5: : The Akkadian word for great. Compare the use of

 in similar contexts in Hos 5:13, 10:6 as reference to the Assyrian
monarch, as noted by many commentators.13 Although the reading is far
from certain (but it is definitely some two-letter combination of  ,,
and , so what else could it be?), it makes a lot of sense here. Apparent-
ly this terminology was reserved for Assyrian emperors as it were, as
opposed to those of relatively modest accomplishments and, perhaps
more importantly, the kings of the provincial and vassal-state areas.
This became notably clear with the publication of the Fekheriyeh bilin-
gual statue (KAI 309) where its author styles himself king in Aramaic
but governor in the Assyrian text.
Mount Gurgum: The Anatolian highlands start to the immediate
north of Marash, capital of Gurgum.
: My province (genitive): Neo-Assyrian phatu (see CAD P,
364f.)

Line 6:
/
: The zayin is somewhat preferable epigraphically, but

such a form for the feminine demonstrative would appear to be unique
in standard Phoenician. The Honeyman stone from Cyprus (KAI 30)
which, except for a more archaic type mem, has an almost identical
ductus to ours) uses
 for the masculine repeatedly. The Old Byblian
texts do use
 for feminine, of course. Thus the reading
 must be
deemed preferable from a linguistic perspective.

13
HALOT s.v. is unnecessarily wishy-washy here in giving the possibility of king
squabbler.
22 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

Line 7:     : For the locations and significance of the
territory of Mt Turtni and the Sinzi River see the wonderful atlas of
S. Parpola and M. Porter.14 Based on the work of Astour, they identify
the Sinzi with the modern riverine toponyms Gksu and Singas.
Clearly here it indicates the major tributary system of the Upper Eu-
phrates leading the traveler north west and then south west to Marash
and then down the Ceyhan to Cilicia. The traces match  better than
the expected , but the latter is not excluded.

Line 8:  : Something like /waryakus/: The name of Awarikus, king

of Que, is spelled
 in the inscription from Cebel Ires Dai15 but is

 at Karatepe (and, apparently, Hassan Beyli). It is attested as -ri-

ik, -ri-ik-ki, and -ri-ia-ik-ki, in Assyrian sources from 740 to 715
B.C.E.16 He ruled from the first half of the eighth century until removed
by Sargon, and is best-known to general scholarship as the patron of
Azitawattas in the Karatepe inscriptions (KAI 26).
: The one of , i.e., the determinative pronoun, as in Arabic  and
archaic Biblical Hebrew Wz and hz< and the origin of common Aramaic yz
and yd. This form is not currently recognized in the grammars, but it
would be strange if it did not exist at all in early Phoenician. Perhaps
some of the current confusion regarding the various forms of the
demonstratives in standard Phoenician and Byblian could be alleviated
by restudying the inscriptions with an eye toward distinguishing this
word from the simple demonstrative.
 : This is the well-known name of the Danunite dynasty.17

Line 9: : Que, the properly-spelled name of the country centered at

Adana, inhabited by the Danunites. Apparently this is the first attesta-
tion of the name in a Phoenician text, though it was previously known
in both Akkadian and Aramaic sources.18

14
S. Parpola and M. Porter, The Helsinki Atlas of the Near East in the Neo-Assyrian
Period (Casco Bay, Maine and Helsinki: Casco Bay Assyriological Institute and the Neo-
Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2001): map 3, ref. AB3.
15
P. Mosca and J. Russell, A Phoenician Inscription from Cebel Ires Dagi in Rough
Cilicia, Epigraphica Anatolica 9 (1987): 128.
16
Tadmor (N 10): 293. For a complete discussion of the etymology of the name and the
historical implications of such an etymology see A. M Jasink and M. Marino, The West-
Anatolian Origins of the Que Kingdom Dynasty, n.p. Online: kubaba.univ-paris1.fr/
recherche/antiquite/mopsoinglesem.pdf.
17
See F. Bron, Recherches sur les inscriptions phniciennes de Karatepe (Hautes
Etudes Orientales 11; Geneva and Paris: Droz, 1979): 172ff.; Jasink and Marino (N 16).
18
For a somewhat confusing etymological discussion see Jasink and Marino (N 16).
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL 23

Line 11: : This is the Akkadian word for land, country. Once near-
ly unknown in West Semitic outside of a late Babylonian Aramaic us-
age, the form is now well-known in Aramaic of the Neo-Assyrian
period and in Official Aramaic (see DNWSI, 706f.) Not surprisingly,
though, its use in our text relates exclusively to the names of Assyrian
political units:   (and possibly   and 
, for which
see epigraphic note to l. 4). Thus we must still treat this as a foreign
word rather than as a loanword in Phoenician.

Line 12:  : Cf. Hebrew  and  and Old Aramaic , but the
reading is particularly uncertain.

 or
  : Hadad, of course, is the name of the primary
Aramean god, to whom Matiel would naturally offer sacrifice. But is
this the infamous version of Hadad, i.e., Hadadmilki, whose existence I
attempted to debunk thirty years ago19 or rather simply Hadad followed
by
, which could only in context be the name of the sacrifice, i.e.,
molek!? I believe it is true that most scholars who have given it much
thought now realize that biblical molek is simply the name of the sacri-
fice, not a divinity, and that its etymology is to be sought in the use of
the causative stem of the verb
 / in reference to the regularization of
sacrificial activity in Phoenician (KAI 26:A2:19  
 
).20
: This verb is commonly used in Northwest Semitic in the sense
of butchering an animal, only secondarily becoming the word for cut-
ting a covenant. The form is probably that of a plural passive partici-
ple here; cf. the finite form in line 14. The physical readings on the left
half of the lower lines of the front side are some of the most certain of
the entire inscription.
: Common in Northwest Semitic to represent financial compen-
sation for physical punishment (e.g., Exod 21:30), but clearly used here
in the sense of redemption for a human offering (as at Exod 30:12: 
). Compare Biblical  and the scapegoat of the Day of
Atonement (Leviticus 16).

19
Stephen A. Kaufman, The Enigmatic Adad-Milki, JNES 37 (1978): 101ff. That ar-
ticle also touched on the burning of babies to some extent as well. I cannot see that subse-
quent research has changed the opinions I there expressed (p. 101, n. 2). It must be
emphasized, though, that our current text deals with the special case of the sacrifice of
royal children to ward off disaster, a practice whose existence in ancient Levantine socie-
ty should have been considered to be an absolute certainty even before the discovery of
this text!
20
For the nearly endless bibliography on l,mo consult HALOT s.v.
24 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

Line 13: : Both  and  are attested in this meaning in North-
west Semitic, but neither has previously been certain in Phoenician.

LEFT

Line 1: : Absent vowel signs,  is polyvalent in Phoenician. It can

mean like, here, or thus.

: Literally the mouth of another, i.e., the King of Urartu! If
dalet is to be read, one mouth would mean in unison. But  could
also be here.

Line 2: : shout or make a noise; apparently with  something

like speak out loudly against or complain.

Line 3: : I.e.,  plus 
: covenant of equals. Brother is a

well-known technical term in the Neo-Assyrian (as in earlier) periods
for political equals in an alliance. (See, e.g., CAD A/1, 200b.) The eli-
sion of alep in the construct compound is not that unusual; see PPG
14.

Line 4: : In Matiels Old Aramaic treaty from Sfire (KAI 222) this
is the normal word for treaty violation. See DNWSI, 1189.
 : If the physical reading is correct, this could be interpreted in
any number of ways: The translation given assumes that the first is a
participial form: traitor, but the second could be participial instead, or
one (either!) could be a finite form with the other an infinitive
absolute.

Line 8: son, sons son, family, etc.: All of this repetitive list of family
members and hangers-on is standard in lists of responsible parties in
Neo-Assyrian period treaty stiputlations, well-known to our anti-hero,
Matiel!21

Line 22: 
: This word has long been established as meaning kin in
Ugaritic.

Line 25:

: The reading is certain. (Cf. also line 14 where it is less
so.) Clearly
is the vocative interjection, as in Syriac. But compare

21
Cf., e.g., Sfire (KAI 222 C:9ff.:) 
   

   

  

   
  
   
[]   
  .
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL 25

Hebrew 
(Qmran 
), usually translated woe! which is probably a

cognate.
: this one if demonstrative; the one who if determinative. I prefer
the latter.

BACK

Line 13:  : probably they separated or they cut off, but just per-
haps as in Aramaic redeemed?

Line 15: The name of the god Assur is correctly spelled with samek
here as opposed to the country name with in.

Line 18:
: A strangely formed Nipal of the root
? PPG 164
knows only the form  of the root  as a Nipal of geminates.

Line 20:  : The reading seems clear, but what would the face of
horse mean? Perhaps something like horse troops or in charge of
cavalry.
: from the root , to dig a pit, mine. There is a large gash in
the stone here, but the tops and bottoms of the letters can just be made
out, and this sequence makes sense with both physical traces and
context.

Line 21:   : In almost exactly contemporary biblical Hebrew (Isa

3:20) this collocation means amulet worn around the throat, but in
slightly later Aramaic and post-biblical Hebrew,   by itself is often
used for funerary monument.22 It is difficult to think of any other in-
terpretation here. The reading 
 was my overly obvious first
guess but makes zero sense in context.

RIGHT

From both context and typology we are clearly in the curse formula
here. The precise point where the cuneiform ended and the alphabetic
inscription began is not clear.

Line 4: Nergal of 
: a common Akkadian (mtnu) loanword in Ara-
maic meaning pestilence (see CAD M, 296), Nergal being the standard

22
DNWSI, 748, meaning 5; HALOT meaning 10.
26 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

bearer of the same in our period. Compare the similar expression in the
curse formula of the Fekheriyeh inscription (KAI 309:23)  
 

, pestilence, rod of Nergal.
107 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

PLATE III

Incirli Inscription, Front (Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West

Semitic Research. Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey)
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL 108

PLATE IV

Incirli Inscription, Front Top, with Royal Figure in Assyrian Style

(Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic Research.
Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey)
109 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

PLATE V

Incirli Inscription, Front, Lines 19

(Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic Research.
Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey)
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL

PLATE VI Incirli Inscription, Front, Lines 915

(Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic
Research. Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey)
110
111 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

PLATE VII

Incirli Inscription, Left Side (Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman,

West Semitic Research. Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey)
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL

PLATE VIII Incirli Inscription, Left Side, Lines 15 Incirli Inscription, Left Side, Lines 59 (Photograph by Bruce and
(Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic Research.
112

Research. Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey) Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey)
 113
MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

PLATE IX Incirli Inscription, Left Side, Lines 1016 Incirli Inscription, Left Side, Lines 1421
(Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic (Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic
Research. Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey) Research. Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey)
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL 114

PLATE X

Incirli Inscription, Left Side, Lines 2127

(Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic Research.
Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey)
115 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

PLATE XI

Incirli Inscription, Back (Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West

Semitic Research. Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey)
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL 116

PLATE XII

Incirli Inscription, Back, Lines 1-9 with Greek Inscription

(Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic Research.
Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey)
117 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

PLATE XIII

Incirli Inscription, Back, Lines 10-18

(Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic Research.
Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey)
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL 118

PLATE XIV

Incirli Inscription, Back, Lines 1826

(Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic Research.
Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey)
119 MAARAV 14.2 (2007)

PLATE XV

Incirli Inscription, Right Side

(Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic Research.
Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey)
 KAUFMAN: INCIRLI TRILINGUAL

PLATE XVI Incirli Inscription, Right Side, Lines 25 Incirli Inscription, Right Side, Lines 48
(Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic (Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic
120

Research. Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey) Research. Courtesy Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, Turkey)