Punic-Libyan bilinguals

Punic-Libyan bilinguals
Punic-Libyan bilinguals
	The first known bilingual inscription of Dougga
Material	Limestone
Size	69 cm high and 207 cm wide
Writing	Libyco-Berber and Phoenician scripts
Created	146 BC
Present location	British Museum, London
Identification	1852,0305.1-2
Culture	Numidia

The Punic-Libyan bilingual inscriptions are two important ancient bilingual inscriptions dated to the 2nd century BC.

The first, the Cenotaph Inscription, was transcribed in 1631 by Thomas D'Arcos^[1] and later played a significant role in deciphering the Libyco-Berber script, in which the Numidian language (Old Libyan) was written.^[2] The language is however still not fully understood. The inscription was part of the Libyco-Punic Mausoleum (Mausoleum of Ateban) at Dougga in Tunisia, before it was removed in the mid nineteenth century and taken to London, where it is now in the British Museum's ancient Middle Eastern collection.^[3]

The second inscription, the Temple Inscription, is longer than the first, and was discovered in 1904 in the Temple of Jupiter at Dougga. It is currently at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, with casts in the archives of the Louvre and the British Museum.

The Libyan inscriptions are the first two, and the longest two, published in Jean-Baptiste Chabot's 1940 work Recueil des Inscriptions Libyques (known as RIL), as RIL 1 and RIL2. The Punic inscriptions are known as KAI 100 and KAI 101 in the Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften.

^ Catherwood, Frederick. Account of the Punico-Libyan monument at Dugga, and the remains of an ancient structure at Bless. American Ethnological Society. pp. 479–480. I find, however, that Dugga was visited in 1631, more than two hundred years ago, when the Phoenician inscription alluded to in this paper, was first brought to light. A French traveller of the name of D'Arcos, who is allowed by Gesenius to have been a man of learning, embraced the Mohammedan religion in the kingdom of Tunis, and travelled extensively in those parts. He copied the inscriptions referred to and corresponded on the subject with the learned Isaac Peiresc, and furnished him with a copy, which not being a satisfactory one, he offered to send the stone itself; but Peiresc, with a good taste and feeling that scarcely exists at the present day, refused the offre, from an unwillingness to cause the ruin of an ancient monument which had survived so man ages. The copy of this inscription sent by D'Arcos was never published to the world, and its existence seems to have been forgotten.
^ Catherwood, Frederick. Account of the Punico-Libyan monument at Dugga, and the remains of an ancient structure at Bless. American Ethnological Society. pp. 474–.
^ British Museum Collection

[1] Catherwood, Frederick. Account of the Punico-Libyan monument at Dugga, and the remains of an ancient structure at Bless. American Ethnological Society. pp. 479–480. I find, however, that Dugga was visited in 1631, more than two hundred years ago, when the Phoenician inscription alluded to in this paper, was first brought to light. A French traveller of the name of D'Arcos, who is allowed by Gesenius to have been a man of learning, embraced the Mohammedan religion in the kingdom of Tunis, and travelled extensively in those parts. He copied the inscriptions referred to and corresponded on the subject with the learned Isaac Peiresc, and furnished him with a copy, which not being a satisfactory one, he offered to send the stone itself; but Peiresc, with a good taste and feeling that scarcely exists at the present day, refused the offre, from an unwillingness to cause the ruin of an ancient monument which had survived so man ages. The copy of this inscription sent by D'Arcos was never published to the world, and its existence seems to have been forgotten.

[2] Catherwood, Frederick. Account of the Punico-Libyan monument at Dugga, and the remains of an ancient structure at Bless. American Ethnological Society. pp. 474–.

[3] British Museum Collection

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