Prasasti Ekron

Prasasti Ekron (secara lengkap bernama Prasasti Dedikasi Kerajaan Ekron) adalah suatu prasasti dedikasi kerajaan yang ditemukan dalam "konteks utama"Aaron Demsky (2007), Reading Northwest Semitic Inscriptions, Near Eastern Archaeology 70/2. Quote: "The first thing to consider when examining an ancient inscription is whether it was discovered in context or not. It is obvious that a document purchased on the antiquities market is suspect. If it was found in an archeological site, one should note whether it was found in its primary context, as with the inscription of King Achish from Ekron, or in secondary use, as with the Tel Dan inscription. Of course texts that were found in an archaeological site, but not in a secure archaeological context present certain problems of exact dating, as with the Gezer Calendar." di antara reruntuhan kuil selama penggalian tahun 1996 di Ekron.Gitin, Dothan, and Naveh, 1997, p. 1
Ditorehkan pada sebuah blok batu kapur persegi panjang, memiliki lima baris dan 71 aksara, dan menyebutkan "Ekron", sehingga mengkonfirmasikan identitas situs itu, serta lima dari penguasanya, termasuk Ikausu (Akhis), putra dari Padi, yang membangun tempat kudus itu. Padi dan Ikausu dikenal sebagai raja Ekron dari akhir abad ke-8 dan abad ke-7 dalam Annal Sejarah Kerajaan Neo-Asyur.Gitin, Seymour (2003), Israelite and Philistine Cult and the Archaeological Record, in Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past, p. 287, "Two of the five names of city's rulers mentioned in the inscription - Padi and Ikausu - appear in the Neo-Assyrian Annals as kings of ‘amqar(r)una, that is, Ekron, an Assyrian vassal city-state in the 7th century B.C.E. (Gitin 1995: 62). Padi is known from the Annals of Sennacherib in the context of the Assyrian king's 701 B.C.E. campaign, at the end of which he gave the towns of the defeated Judean King Hezekiah to Padi and others (Pritchard 1969: 287-88). Padi is also cited in a docket dated to 699 B.C.E., according to which he delivered a light talent of silver to Sennacherib (Fales and Postgate 1995: 21-22). Ikausu is listed as one of the 12 coastal kings who transported building materials to Nineveh for the palace of Esarhaddon (680-669 B.C.E.), and his name also appears in a list of kings who participated in Ashurbanipal's first campaign against Egypt in 667 B.C.E. (Pritchard 1969: 291, 294)." Raja Padi disebutkan dalam kaitannya dengan peristiwa-peristiwa dari tahun 701 dan 699 SM, Raja Ikausu dalam kaitannya dengan tahun 673 dan 667 SM, menempatkan tanggal prasasti dengan tegas dalam paruh pertama abad ke-7 SM, dan kemungkinan besar pada kuartal kedua abad itu.Peter James, The Date of the Ekron Temple Inscription: A Note, in Israel Exploration Journal (IEJ), vol., 55 No. 1 (2005), p. 90

Ini merupakan badan teks pertama yang dapat diidentifikasi sebagai "Filistin",Gitin, Dothan, and Naveh, 1997, p. 15, quote: "Until now, the inscriptions found in Philistia have contained mainly proper names; hence, the Ekron dedication is the first fluent text containing two whole phrases" atas dasar identifikasi Ekron sebagai sebuah kota orang Filistin dalam Alkitab (lihat  dan ). Namun, teks itu ditulis dalam dialek Kanaan yang mirip dengan Fenisia dan Byblian Tua, sehingga para penemunya menyebutnya sebagai "suatu teka-teki".Gitin, Dothan, and Naveh, 1997, p. 15, quote: "If so, one may ask why should a seventh century BCE inscription be written at Ekron in a language close to Phoenician and reminiscent of Old Byblian. Phoenician was the prestige language in the tenth and ninth century BCE. To find an inscription, however, in seventh century BCE Philistia, where a script from the Hebrew tradition was used, is something of an enigma."Jaacob Callev, "The Canaanite Dialect of the Dedicatory Royal Inscription from Ekron".

 Penemuan 
Prasasti itu ditemukan pada suatu proyek Albright Institute of Archaeological Research untuk penggalian Tel Miqne di Ekron yang dipimpin oleh Seymour Gitin dan Trude Dothan.

Tulisan itu merupakan salah satu dokumen utama untuk membangun kronologi dari peristiwa-peristiwa yang berkaitan dengan akhir akhir periode alkitabiah, terutama mungkin sejarah akhir orang-orang Filistin. Karenanya, prasasti itu telah disebut sebagai salah satu temuan arkeologis yang paling penting dari abad ke-20 di Israel.

 Terjemahan 
Teks ditulis dari kanan-ke-kiri dalam gaya dan dialek prasasti Fenisia dari Byblos.Berlant, 2008, p.15, "According to the excavation leaders Gitin, Dothan, and Naveh, the inscription, written from right to left in a style reminiscent of tenth century b.c.e. Phoenician inscriptions from Byblos, records the temple’s dedication by Ekron’s ruler Ikausu in a West Semitic dialect resembling Phoenician and Old Byblian, apparently spoken at Ekron and perhaps other Levantine Philistine city states. Comprised of some seemingly Hebrew letters, some seemingly Phoenician letters, and some letters that seem to have been unique to Ekron" Telah ditranskrip dan diterjemahkan sebagai:

 {|
| 1.
| bt.bn.ʾkyš.bn.pdy.bn.
| Kuil (yang) ia bangun, 'kys putra Padi, putra
|-
| 2.
| ysd.bn.ʾdʾ.bn.yʿr.šr ʿq
| Ysd, putra Ada, putra Ya'ir, penguasa Ek-
|-
| 3.
| rn.lpt[ ]yh.ʾdth.tbrkh.wt
| ron, untuk Pt[ ]yh wanitanya, semoga dia (perempuan) memberkatinya (laki-laki), dan
|-
| 4.
| šm[r]jam.wtʾrk.ymh.wtbrk.
| melin[du]nginya, dan memperpanjang hari-harinya, dan memberkati
|-
| 5.
| [ʾ]r(ṣ)h
| nya [t]anahnya
|}

 Interpretasi 
Bahasa dan bentuk tulisan prasasti Ekron menunjukkan pengaruh signifikan Fenisia, dan nama Ikausu dipahami sebagai Akhis.

Prasasti ini berisi daftar lima raja-raja Ekron, ayah ke anak-anaknya: Ya'ir, Ada, Yasid, Padi, dan Ikausu, dan nama dewi Pt[ ]yh kepada siapa kuil ini didedikasikan, dua di antaranya (Padi dan Ikausu) disebutkan dalam Annal Kerajaan Neo-Asyur, dan dengan referensi tersebut telah memberikan dasar untuk pemberian tarikh pada akhir abad ke-8 dan 7 SM.

Tulisan ini juga dengan tegas mengidentifikasi situs itu dengan menyebutkan nama Ekron.

Identitas "pt[g/r/-]yh" telah menjadi subjek perdebatan ilmiah, dengan huruf ketiga adalah gimel sangat kecil memberikan "ptgyh" yang adalah satu nama dewa yang tidak diketahui sebelumnya,Berlant, 2008, p.15-16, "Gitin, Dothan, and Naveh went on to state that the questionable letter... is undoubtedly an ancient form of the Hebrew letter gimmel. Yet this letter would be a remarkably small gimmel, and no Semitic goddess named Ptgyh has ever been identified. Nevertheless, Gitin, Dothan, and Naveh concluded that Ptgyh was “surely” a previously unknown Philistine and Indo-European deity based on: (1) the presence of terminal -yh in two feminine personal names in a Philistine name list found in the excavation of Tel Jemmeh; (2) the belief that Ikausu is a form of the Greek name Anchises, Achean or both; and (3) the generally accepted belief that the Philistines were known biblically as the Caphtorim, who presumably migrated from Crete and other parts of what is now Greece to the Levant in the late second millennium b.c.e." atau resh memberikan "ptryh" atau "Pidray" putri dewa Semit Baal,Berlant, 2008, p.21, "...Görge’s suggestion that the letter may have been a resh in Ptryh, a variant of Pidray, Baal’s daughter’s name... In view of the preceding evidence and analysis, the hypothesis that the questionable letter is a resh is certainly no less founded than the hypotheses that the letter was supposed to be a nun... The resh hypothesis is also more supportable, instructive, and ultimately important than the other hypotheses because the resulting name is a highly attested Semitic and, more broadly, Afro-Asiatic word that more aptly fits the inscription’s setting. Görge’s hypothesis therefore melds quite well with the hypothesis that the Ekron goddess was Pidray/Ptryh, rather than some previously unknown Semitic, much less Greek, goddess." atau nun memberikan "ptnyh",Demsky Aaron, 1997. The Name of the Goddess of Ekron: A New Reading, JANES, 25, p. 3.  " I therefore propose to read the word pt[n]y.h, which in Canaanite letters would represent the Greek term potni’, potnia (ποτνι', ποτνια), i.e., “mistress,” “lady,” the formal title of various goddesses in the Minoan, Mycenean and archaic Greek writings. The root is pot, meaning “lord, master,” as in despot. The term is found already in Myceanean documents written in Linear B dated to the 14th–12th centuries BCE, from Knossos (Crete) and Pylos (Peloponnesus)(Ventris & Chadwick, 1973). After making a search, I find that the term appears 90 times in the Homeric epics and hymns..."Finkelberg Margalit, (2006) Ino-Leucothea between East and West, J. of Ancient Near Eastern Religions, 6:105-121, referred in Lopez-Ruiz C., Mopsos and Cultural Exchange between Greeks and Locals in Cilicia, in Ueli Dill, Christine Walde (eds.) "Antike Mythen: Medien, Transformationen und Konstruktionen," Walter de Gruyter, 2009, p. 497. atau tidak ada huruf sama sekali sehingga memberikan "ptyh".Berlant, 2008, p.16-18, "After inspecting the questionable letter closely, however, Demsky concluded that it “is no more than a wedge shaped chip in the porous stone,” and that Yardeni had drawn the letter’s left line “too concave” In addition, Demsky concluded that what Gitin, Dothan, and Naveh had interpreted and Yardeni had drawn as the letter’s right line was nothing but an unintended “spur,” rather than a real line. On the other hand, after comparing the questionable letter to the inscription’s nuns, Demsky went on to hypothesize that the name of this deity is Ptnyh, presumably representing the Greek word potni or potnia for “mistress” or “lady,” in agreement with what Demsky identified as the archaic Greek practice of denoting various deities in Linear B sometimes simply as “Mistress” or “Lady,” and sometimes more specifically as “Mistress or Lady So and So.”... Schäeffer-Lichtenberger argued that, among other problems with Demsky’s hypothesis: (1) “there is no known example of potnia hitherto as a name”; (2) all the nuns begin at the top of lines, but the questionable letter begins six mm. below the line; (3) the letter’s left line was indeed curved, as Gitin, Dothan, and Naveh had claimed; and (4) the space available below the questionable letter would not have allowed the scribe to chisel the tail of a nun or, for that matter, a resh"

 Prasasti lain dari Ekron 
Penggalian juga menghasilkan 16 prasasti pendek termasuk kdš l'šrt ("didedikasikan untuk [dewi] Asyerat (=Asyera)"), lmqm a("suci"), dan huruf tet dengan tiga garis horizontal di bawahnya (mungkin menunjukkan 30 unit hasil bumi yang disisihkan untuk persepuluhan), dan timbunan perak.

 Lihat pula 

 Daftar artefak terkait Alkitab

 Referensi 

 Pustaka tambahan 

 S. Gitin, T. Dothan, and J. Naveh, "A Royal Dedicatory Inscription from Ekron," Israel Exploration Journal 47 (1997): 1-18
 M. Görge (1998), “Die Göttin der Ekron-Inschrift,” BN 93, 9–10.
 Demsky, Aaron. "The Name of the Goddess of Ekron: A New Reading," Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society vol. 25 (1997) pp. 1–5
 M.W. Meehl, T. Dothan and S. Gitin, Tel Miqne-Ekron Excavations, 1995–1996, Field INE, East Slope: Iron Age I (Early Philistine Period), Final Field Reports 8, 2006
 S.M. Ortiz, S. Gitin and T. Dothan, Tel Miqne-Ekron Excavations, 1994–1996, Fields IVNE/NW (Upper) and VSE/SW: The Iron Age /I Late Philistine Temple Complex 650, Final Field Reports 9, 2006
 Philistine dedicatory inscription, at the Israel Museum
 The Ekron Inscription of Akhayus (2.42)
 Gitin, Seymour (1999), Ekron of the Philistines in the Late Iron Age II, ASOR
 Berlant, Stephen (2008), "The Mysterious Ekron Goddess Revisited," Journal of The Ancient Near Eastern Society vol. 31 pp. 15–21   

Category:7th-century BC works
Category:1996 archaeological discoveries
Category:Ancient Israel and Judah
Category:Ancient Near East steles
Category:Archaeological artifacts
Kategori:Philistines
Category:Phoenician inscriptions
Kategori:Israel Kuno dan Yehuda
Kategori:Artefak arkeologis
Kategori:Artefak berkaitan dengan Alkitab