Social:Benhisa inscription
The Benhisa inscription, CIS I 124, is Punic funeral inscription found in Malta in 1761. It mentions the name Hannibal, which garnered significant scholarly interest.[1]
It is engraved on a block of stone measuring approximately 26 cm x 26 cm, containing four lines of which the end is missing (the left part was broken on its transfer to Paris).[1]
It was sent to Paris in 1810 and it remains in the Cabinet des Médailles of the National Library.[1]
Discovery
The inscription was discovered in the region of Bengħisa (archaically spelt Benhisa), just south of Birżebbuġa, at the south-eastern tip of the island. It was found in a cave-vault with whitewashed walls, dug in a rock, the stone on which was engraved the text in Phoenician characters in a niche carved in the rock, in the interior part of the cave, where also lay a corpse, near which a lamp had been discovered.[1]
Publications
Multiple sketches were published:[1]
- Abela, G.F. (1772) (in it). Malta illustrata... del commendatore F. Giovanfrancesco Abela,... corretta, accresciuta, e continovata dal conte Giovannantonio Ciantar,... con le piante di Malta, e della sua antica citta'.... Malta illustrata... del commendatore F. Giovanfrancesco Abela,... corretta, accresciuta, e continovata dal conte Giovannantonio Ciantar,... con le piante di Malta, e della sua antica citta'. per F. Giovanni Mallia. https://books.google.com/books?id=_9GByDOpFNcC. (pages 198-199 and 465–466)
- Ciantar's copy was studied by Jean-Jacques Barthélémy, the decipherer of Phoenician, in Journal des Savants, December 1761, p. 871-872
- Swinton, John. “An Attempt to Explain a Punic Inscription, Lately Discovered in the Island of Malta. In a Letter to the Reverend Thomas Birch, D. D. Secret. R. S. from the Reverend John Swinton, B. D. of Christ-Church, Oxon. F. R. S. and Member of the Etruscan Academy of Cortona in Tuscany.” Philosophical Transactions (1683-1775) 53 (1763): 274–93. http://www.jstor.org/stable/105734.
- Castello, Gabriele Lancillotto (1769) (in la). Siciliae et objacentium insularum veterum inscriptionum nova collectio, prolegom. et notis illustrata. cajet. Mar. Bentivenga. https://books.google.com/books?id=xZRcAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA293. (pages 293 and p. 318 in the 1784 edition)
- Drummond, Willian (1810). An Essay on a Punic Inscription Found in the Island of Malta. A.J. Valpy [and] sold by W.H Lunn. https://books.google.com/books?id=49FCAAAAcAAJ.
It does not appear in the Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften or Cooke's Text-Book of North-Semitic Inscriptions.[1]
Bibliography
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Sznycer Maurice. Antiquités et épigraphie nord-sémitiques. In: École pratique des hautes études. 4e section, Sciences historiques et philologiques. Annuaire 1973-1974. 1974. pp. 131-153. www.persee.fr/doc/ephe_0000-0001_1973_num_1_1_5852
- ↑ Caruana, A.A. (1882). Report on the Phoœnician and Roman antiquities in ... Malta. p. 36-37. https://books.google.com/books?id=7ZQNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA36.
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