Limyra bilingual inscription

The Limyra bilingual inscription is a 4th-century BCE bilingual Greek-Aramaic funerary inscription discovered in 1840.^[1] It was found 3km outside Limyra, in southwest Turkey.^[2]

Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum CIS II 109 (Limyra bilingual sketch) (cropped)

Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum CIS II 109 (Limyra bilingual) (cropped)

The one line inscription is 142cm long, with a 79cm long gap.

The Aramaic inscription is known as KAI 262. An analysis of the inscription was first published in 1887 by Eduard Sachau.^[2][3]

Bibliography

• Hanson, R. (1968). Aramaic Funerary and Boundary Inscriptions from Asia Minor. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, (192), 3-11. doi:10.2307/1356398
• Lipinski, Edward, 1975, Studies in Aramaic Inscriptions and Onomastics I, OLA 1, Leuven : 162-171.
• Fellows, C., An Account of Discoveries in Lycia, Being a Journal Kept During a Second Excursion in Asia Minor, . London: J. Murray, 1841
• Sachau, E., "Eine altaramäische Inschrift aus Lycien." SKAWW 114 (1887): 3–7, pl. 1
• Darmesteter, J., "L'inscription araméenne de Limyra." JA 8/12 (1888): 508–10
• Perles, F., "Das Land Arzâph (IV Ezra 13, 45)." AfO 3 (1926): 120–21.

References

1. Charles Fellows (1841). An Account of Discoveries in Lycia,: Being a Journal Kept During a Second Excursion in Asia Minor. John Murray. This morning we left Phineka for this village, called Haggevalleh. The distance is five hours, reckoning by time, for we have had again to skirt the plain and repass Limyra. Continuing at the foot of the mountain for two miles beyond that city, we found, quite separated from it, a large collection of ornamented tombs in the rocks, but no walls or indications of another city; these therefore must probably be added to the cemeteries of Limyra. The inscriptions, with a single exception, were all Lycian, and this had Greek letters over one panel, and over the other an Eastern character unknown to me, much resembling the letters upon the coins of Phoenicia. [Footnote: This Phoenician inscription is given in Plate XXXVI. No. 1.]
2. Mariona Vernet Pons, Lycian Zemure "Limyra" and the Aramaic inscription from Limyra, a new reading, Aula orientalis: revista de estudios del Próximo Oriente Antiguo, ISSN 0212-5730, Vol. 35, Nº. 2, 2017, pgs. 327-344; "The Aramaic funerary inscription from Limyra is located in Tomb No. 46 of Limyra’s Necropolis CH V (Borchardt 2012: 420), in the midst of other Lycian tombs, which contain Lycian inscriptions. This tomb is the only one bearing two inscriptions, written in Aramaic and Greek respectively. It is dated from ca. the 5th-4th centuries BCE. It consists of a wide double cut-rock tomb with the characteristic protruding timber beams of the Lycian funerary architectonic style and without pediment. It is situated very close to the modern roadway, about three kilometers beyond Limyra. The Aramaic inscription is engraved in a single line on the lintel of the tomb’s left entrance. Above the Aramaic inscription, on the frieze, there is another inscription written in Greek that spans both doors and occupies a single line."
3. Eduard Sachau, Eine Altaramäische Inschrift aus Lycien, Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, CXIV, p.3-7