page_title: Eshmunazar II sarcophagus
section_title: Inscription
hierarchical_section_title: Eshmunazar II sarcophagus / Inscription
caption_attribution_description: English: Funerary inscription of Eshmunazar, 5th century BCE, Jaffa museum, Jaffa, Israel.
context_page_description: The sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II, a Phoenician King of Sidon and the son of King Tabnit, was created in the early 5th century BCE. It was unearthed in 1855 at a site near Sidon and is now in the Louvre. The sarcophagus was likely created in Egypt, being carved from amphibolite from Wadi Hammamat.
  The inscription, first published in 1856 by Jean-Joseph-Léandre Bargès, states that the "Lord of Kings" granted the Sidonian kings territory in Philistine: Dor, Jaffa, the Plain of Sharon.
  The inscription is the first discovered in the Phoenician language from the area known as Phoenicia. Bargès wrote that the language of the inscription is "identical with Hebrew, except for the final inflections of a few words and certain expressions, in very small numbers, which are not found in the biblical texts which have come down to us; the fact that Hebrew was written and spoken in Sidon, at a time when the Jews returning from captivity no longer heard this language, is proof that it was preserved among the Phoenicians longer than among the Hebrews themselves."
context_section_description: The sarcophagus bears a 22 line inscription, known as KAI-14, written in the Phoenician Canaanite language, in the Phoenician alphabet.  The inscription identifies the king inside and warns people not to disturb his repose.
  The language used in the inscription is a Canaanite dialect mutually intelligible with Biblical Hebrew.
  As in other Phoenician inscriptions, the text seems to use no, or hardly any, matres lectionis. As in Aramaic, the preposition אית (ʾyt) is used as an accusative marker, while את (ʾt) is used for "with".
caption: Copy of the inscription at the Jaffa museum
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