ART IX-1. Scripturæ Linguæque Phæni- | dearth the few monuments that do remain cia Monumenta quot-quot supersunt inedita acquire a tenfold interest. Many and vaet edita ad autographorum optimorumque ried have been the attempts at interpreting Exemplorum fidem edidit, addiisque de them, but the first inquiries were certainly Scriptura et Lingua Phonicum Commen- any thing but successful, and their results tariis illustravit Guil. Gesenius. 4to Lip to the last degree absurd and extravagant. siæ, 1837. No fixed principles were ascertained, the 2. Paläographische Studien über phönizische power of each letter was awarded to it in the und punische Schrift. Herausgegeben most arbitrary manner. An utter disrevon D. Wilhelm Gesenius. Enthaltend, gard was shown to the idiom and genius 1mo. Franz Perez Bayer über Schrift of the Hebrew language, which it was und Sprache der Phönizier, aus dem agreed on all hands* afforded the only key Spanischen, von H. Hoilmann, mit An- to their explanation. The degree of eluci merkungen von W. Gesenius; 2do. W. dation attained may be guessed when an Gesenius über die punischaumidische inscription on a triumphal arch is interpretSchrift, und die damit geschriebenen grösstentheils unerklärten Inschriften und Münzlegenden. 4to. Leipzig. 1834 A CONSIDERABLE number of years has elapsed since the attention of the learned was first directed to the study of a very in teresting branch of archæology and philo. logy, that of Phoenician antiquities. When we reflect what a vast extent of territory the enterprising and commercial spirit of the Tyrians and Carthaginians led them to explore and colonize, we shall be only the more astonished at the comparatively small number of monuments of those great nations which time has spared us. What is left consists of a few inscriptions and coins, found principally not where we should a priori anticipate, namely, at the chief cities themselves, but at their distant colonies. The neighbourhood of the few huts which constitute the present Tyre has furnished us with almost nothing to attest the pristine magnificence of the city of the waves. Carthage indeed affords us somewhat more, and the various colonies on the shores and in the islands of the Mediterranean, each furnish us with a small relic of the very interesting nation from whence they sprung. The extreme rarity and obscurity of these monuments adds largely to their interest. It was long ere the utmost sagacity of the learned could decipher and explain their inscriptions. Excepting these and the few verses in the Poenulus of Plautus, nothing whatever remains to give us the most remote idea of the language spoken by the Phoenicians. Their whole literature has perished. We know nothing of it but at second and through the medium of the Greek and the Latin. We are scarcely acquainted with more than the names of some of their writers, and with but few of those. Sanchuniathon, Theodotus, Hypsi. crates, Mochus, Mago, Hamilcar, Hanno, Himiles, Hannibal, and Hiempsal, form the whole catalogue. In this extraordinary It was ed by Hamaker to mean "ut precatio prop. The We must except the lucubrations of Vallancey, strongly as he has been lately supported by Sir W. Betham, as both consider that the Phoenician and Carthaginian language still survives in the Irish. Some little regard must be paid to the pretensions of the Maltese that their idiom is the relic of the language of Tyre. In both cases we conceive a portion unquestionable, but not at all to the extent asserted.-Ed. A last cause arises from the renewed discus- | Swinton in this country, and Barthelemy in sion as to the nature of the dialects spoken France, turned their attention to the bilingual at Tyre and Carthage and their dependen inscription found at Malta in the year 1735, cies. For although since Bochart's time and those discovered in Cyprus by Pococke, the learned world had almost universally and described by him in the year 1745. allowed that the Phoenician language was, Those two able scholars approached their with few exceptions, identical with the He- task with an industry and sagacity almost brew, Hamaker has lately put forth what unparalleled; and having ascertained the Gesenius might well call "perversam istam true power of a number of the Phoenician et temerariam opinionem;" that it is a com- letters, they may be said to be indeed the pound of all the various dialects of the first founders of all Phoenician Palæography. Semitic branch. Whether this be correct It is to be lamented, that like their predecesor not, must of course be determined by an sors in another species of foundation, Roattentive and careful examination of the mulus and Remus, a quarrel ensued. monuments that remain, and we shall see sharp and angry discussion arose between in the sequel that Hamaker's notion is en- them, both as to the priority of discovery, tirely without foundation. and likewise as to the interpretation of several Under these circumstances, then, it be. monuments. The truth with respect to the comes absolutely necessary, in order to ar- first point of dispute seems to be, that to rive at any accurate knowledge, to revise Swinton is due the earliest interpretation; thoroughly the labours of those who had gone and for the second, that to Barthelemy must before; and without rejecting any valuable be awarded the credit of being the more achint and suggestion which they might have curate. Swinton, indeed, seems to have thrown out, to submit each individual monu. been much more successful in decyphering ment, whether even papyrus or inscription, than in interpreting the inscriptions. After to a searching, and as far as possible, a per- them came Dutens and Bayer, one of whose sonal examination; this in a great measure, treatises forms the second heading of our Dr. Gesenius has accomplished. We shall present article, and Pellerin, who collected endeavour to present our readers with a no less than 33,000 ancient medals and condensed account of the results of his la- coins. They were followed with equal arbours. dour by Kopp, Tyschen, Akerblad, Sir W. easier matter to make out each individual letter, than to discover the signification of the mysterious writings which they had so far at least stripped of somewhat of their obscurity. We shall not, however, incumber our pages with a catalogue of all the ingeni The following are the titles of Barthelemy's and Swinton's treatises: As early as the year 1576, Goltzius had Drummond, Bellermann, Gesenius, and Peygiven to the public figures and descriptions ron: monuments and inscriptions multiplied, of various coins having what were deemed and new forces were brought to bear upon Punic inscriptions, in his Historia Siciliæ et the matter; still, however, it appears that Magnæ Græciæ ex numismatibus illustratis. like their predecessors, most of the writers The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in- on the subject seem to have found it a much deed, present us with a respectable number of writers on the medals and coins found in Sicily, Spain, Syria; among them may be mentioned the names of Albrete, Agostino, Gesner, Irselith, and Lord Pembroke. Still however, but little progress had been made it is true, indeed, a number of attempts had been tried to form something like an a'phabet from the legends on the coins; yet so far from these attempts being at all successful, not one coin became in the smallest de. gree more intelligible than it was before. In fact, the alphabets were not Phoenician at all, but, on the contrary, Samaritan, such as is seen on the coins of the Maccabees. It was not until the beginning of the eighteenth century, that the slightest good fortune seems to have crowned the random guesses that were made; and the first probable explana tion was put forth by Rhenferd, in his Periculum Phoenicium s. litteraturæ Phoenicia specimine; and Montfaucon was the first to make the lucky guess that the legend on the Sidonian coins must be read 15. Further than this, no progress had been made until Barthelemy Réflexions sur quelques Monumens Phéniciens et sur les Alphate sequi en resultent. Mémoires de l'Acad. des Inscriptions. Tom. xxx. p. 405. Lettre à M. le Marquis d'Olivieri ou sujet de quelques Monumens Phéniciens. Paris, 1766. Swinton Inscriptiones Cilicæ s. in tinas Inscriptiones Phoenicias inter rudera Citii, nuper repertas conjecturæ. 1750. Another, on two more inscriptions from the same place, in 1753. A Dissertation upon the Phoenician Numeral Philos. Characters anciently used at Sidon. Transact. vol. 50, p. 791. An attempt to explain a Punic Inscription lately discovered in the Island of Malta. Ibid. vol. 53, p. 274. Some remarks on the first part of M. l'Abbé Barthelemy's Memoir on the Phoenician Letters, &c. Ibid. vol. 54, p. 119. Further remarks, &c. Ibid. pp. 393, 438. ous authors who have written upon this mat- the winds and waves of the Atlantic they ter, but must refer our readers to the work even visited our own islands. With Dr. of Dr. Gesenius which heads our article. Gesenius however, for our guide, we shall Still the names of Kopp, Eckhel, Quatre- proceed to take a survey of the several localimère, cannot be passed without mention. ties in which it is absolutely certain that the The first certainly is one whose writings, use of that dialect of the great Syrian idiom, though of but trivial extent, form quite an called Phoenician, at one ine or other ob. epoch in this most interesting branch of tained. study; the second is, if anything, rather too fastidious, and inclined to be hypercritical. One of the first subjects of inquiry is, in what regions did the Phoenician language prevail as the idiom of the inhabitants; and was the method of writing, that is, the alphabet used, identical in all? The latter part of the question may be shortly answered; for wherever one language was spoken it is most likely that one alphabet was in use; and with respect to the first we may assume that wherever a monument or monuments containing Phoenician inscriptions have been found, it is probable that the Phoenician language was spoken in that region, or at least that those who s oke it occasionally resided there or visited it. But then it may be ob. jected that if the Phoenician be identical with the Hebrew, how comes it that the latter language is written in an entirely different char. acter? It is undoubtedly true that at a certain epoch the Jews ceased making use of their ancient alphabet, and adopted the square Araman character. This is supposed to have occurred after their return from the Babylonian captivity. Our own opinion is, that instead of its being a language of itself, properly so called, it was only a branch of that spoken in the wide territory stretching from very far beyond the western boundaries of Persia at least, to the Mediterranean, and once as nearly related to, if not identical with, Hebrew, as the English of Middlesex is to that of Surrey. "That the Phoenician and Punic bore considerable affinity to the Hebrew tongue, Jerome and Augustin, of ancient authorities, indeed is a high authority on the subject, as have remarked more than once-the latter living when the Punic tongue flourished in Africa. He owns himself a Carthaginian (contra Jul. 3. 17). So also in the Questions on the Book of Judges, he says 'those tongues (Hebrew and Punic) are not widely different.' The same writer says (contra lit. Petil. 2. 104) the Hebrews call him (Christ) the Messiah, which word has the same sound in Punic, as have very many others, and in fact almost all. On John, tr. 15. These lan guages are cognate and neighbouring, viz. Hebrew, Punic, and Syriac.' De Dom. 35, where he explains Mammon; 'It is a Hebrew word of Punic affinity, for those languages The most ancient document containing tion. Loc. 1. 1. And he raised his hand. are connected by a certain unity of significaPhoenician characters that has hitherto been The phrase is what I should term Hebrew, found is a Cilico-Phoenician medal, struck for it is nearest allied to the Punic, in which apparently in celebration of the naval victory we find many words agreeing in sound with of the Persians at Cnidus, in the third year the Hebrew.' So too Jerome (Jer. 5. 25), of the ninety-sixth Olympiad, or 309 A .c.;Tyre and Sidon are the principal cities of and the most modern is an inscription on a the Phoenician sea coast; Carthage is their triumphal arch erected at Tripoli in the reign colony, whence also the Poni are corruptly of the Emperor Septimius Severus, A. D. 203. called Phani; their language in a great This is embracing a period of nearly six 7, In the Punic tougue also, which is said to hundred years, during which we are quite come from the Hebrew, a virgin is properly certain that the Phoenician language pre-called alma.' In Quæst. Gen. 36. 24, 'Some vailed; and there is every reason to believe think that hot water is signified by this word that it was spoken and written at a much, according to analogy with the Punic, earlier as well as much later date. As we before remarked, the enterprising mercantile genius of the Tyrians, and their descendants the Carthaginians, carried their language, manners, and habits, throughout a range of territory comprising a very large portion of the then known habitable part of the world. Starting from their island city on the western coast of Syria, they in succession visited and colonized almost and shore on the Mediterranean, and, boldly venturing beyond the pillars of Hercules, founded Cadiz, the ancient Gadir or Gades; it is also believed that trusting themselves to every island measure resembles Hebrew.' In Jes. 1. 3. c. which accords with Hebrew.' Priscian, 1. 5. P. 123, asserts, 'In particular the Punic has no neuter gender, in which it resembles Chalhand Jerome is in error, Jes. 19. 8, We candaic, Hebrew, and Syriac.' On the other not,' says he, 'speak in Hebrew but in Canaanitish, which is a mediate tongue between Egyptian and Hebrew, and in great part resembling Hebrew. Perhaps however for Egyptian we should read Aramaam. "The same has been the opinion of more stowed their attention on the relics of the recent Philologists; such at least as have bePhoenician language, or come to a conclusion respecting them. Yet these we find dividing into two different opinions. For some affirm which we need not examine at any length. Now since these monuments are in reality written in the Aramæan dialect, modified with a few Hebrew and other letters, and found in Phoenicia and also elsewhere, you may define the nature of the true Phoenician tongue from these about as correctly, as if you inferred from the Chaldean chapters of Daniel and Ezra, or from the Targums, that the language of the entire Old Testament is full of Syricisms and Chaldaicisms." that, except a slight difference in writing and pronouncing, the Phoenician language is the same as the Hebrew, pure from the forms of its cognate dialects: others think it like the Hebrew certainly, but variously modified by Arabic, Syriac, Chaldaic, and Samaritan forms. Hamaker went beyond all bounds in the repeated assertion of this latter opinion. He, calling the above opinion of the similarity and affinity of Phoenician with Hebrew perverse and rash, pretends that the learned ought to reject it; and blends together all the Semitic tongues so far as they can be brought Beginning, then, with the tract of country apparently to support his conjecture; mak- bordering on Palestine, and called Phonice, ing for himself a particular Phoenician speech we find in the Old Testament the most anvery different from the true Phoenician. He affirms that the Phoenician is not exactly any cient and undoubted specimens in the names one Semitic dialect, but at one time inclining of places and men, such as,, It is to Arabic, at another to Syriac, and not un- strange, however, that in this, the native soil frequently to Samaritan: at which no one of the language, are found neither very can be surprized who knows that the Sama- many nor very ancient monuments bearing ritans drew their origin from Sidon: that the inscriptions in the Phoenician character: of Carthaginians had not only derivatives, but marbles none also radicals, peculiar to themselves, incorpo- whatcoins remain are those of the Seleucidæ ; are known to exist; and rated with their own from the common mother of all the Semitic dialects, or from the the most ancient of these date from the reign Lybian; all which is proved by other Pho- of Antiochus IV., and were struck A.D. 173. nician monuments, as many as are extant, as The only part of Asia besides Phonice, well as most especially by the Tuggensian properly so called, which presents us with inscription, in which almost all the expres- any inscriptions is Cilicia. These are insions are novel and unknown. Quoting this deed the most ancient, and therefore the opinion, of a very learned man for the pur after the death of Alexander the Great. poses of criticism, we now, in addition to the most interesting as they date as far back as remarks in our notes, return to examine the the epoch of Persian domination in that grounds of his opinion, or the causes of his province. The cities whose Phoenician errors. Of these, upon reading Hamaker's names these coins present, such as Ibaal, essay, we detect two. The first and princi- Baal-melek, seem entirely to have vanished; pal source of error consists in the false read- or at any rate, if still existing, their names ing of various monuments; and this we per- have merged into the Greek at the period ceive is to be attributed to careless copyists, when the use of the Phoenician language fell and more especially to palæographic bluninto desuetude. ders (in old inscriptions). Respecting the This happened shortly first of these in fact, our readers should re. member that such is the prevalence of error, that, in Numidian inscriptions especially, (see Tugg. Num. 3. 4), we have scarcely found two or three continuous letters rightly decyphered by Hamaker. But no Punic Edipus could restore the legitimate analogies of the Phoenician tongue from false readings All the obscurities of cognate dialects were to be struck out; and this Hamaker did; so that from letters wanting sense in themselves, a something, however silly, might be made out. Leaving the shores of Cilicia, we come upon the island of Cyprus. In that favoured region of the goddess of love, the Phonicians founded many cities, such as that of Citium on the southern coast of the island. In this place no less than thirty-three marbles. with inscriptions in the Phoenician character, were found by Pocoke in the year 1738, and described by him; and afterwards by Porter about 1750, who brought one of them to England it is now in the Bodleian libra"A second specics of error arises from ry at Oxford. The rest have been copied the fact that Hamaker also, as well as Lan- with more or less accuracy by both the above. cius, neglected a most important distinction for as Barthelemy had been accus. named travellers, and thus afford, perhaps, tomed to denominate Phoenician even those the largest collective body of materials with monuments which were discovered in which to build the edifice of Phoenician PaEgypt (especially the Carpentoractensian læography. It is remarkable that none of stone), in the Aramæan dialect, and in a the whole number is bilingual, and that no certain peculiar eharacter; an error which Greek inscription has been found in the same in fact had already been detected and expo- locality; we may, therefore conclude that sed by Koppius; yet Hamaker, biassed by these marbles date from the time when the a preconceived opinion respecting the nature of the Phoenician dialect, did not Phoenician was the sole language spoken at hesitate to deduce from such a source a Citium This, however, could not have confirmation of his opinions, the value of been much later than Alexander, No coins with Phoenician legends have been found in this place, and even the extremely few that have Greek inscriptions are for the most part suspicious. Leaving Cyprus in the course of our periplus, the next place we arrive at is Athens. Here three bilingual inscriptions have been found on very elegantly formed tomb-stones erected in memory evidently of Tyrian and Sidonian merchants, who have died at Athens. One of these marbles is at present deposited in the United Service Museum. It is formed of Pentelic marble, and of very elegant shape; the translation of the Phoenician part of the inscription is, "The tomb for remembrance among the living, of Abd-Tanith, the son of AbdShemesh, the Sidonian." The other two marbles are, one at Paris and the second at Leipzig. The inscription which we have just given is extremely interesting; the first name an swers to the Greek Artemidorus, and the second to Heliodorus. We might, did our limits permit us, enter into a discussion as to what goddess is meant by Tanith, translated into Greek, Artemis, and whether she be identical with that goddess and the Latin Diana. Dr. Gesenius says, his eyes, is from Clemens Alexandrinus (Prot. p. 43, Sylb.), thus ; "Figures resembling the human form, Artaxerxes, son of Darius, son of Ochus, introduced; who was the first that erected in Babylon, in Susa, and Ecbatana, and in Bactri, and Damascus, and Sardis, and ordered to be worshipped, the statue of Venus Tanais. "Bulenger on Arnovius reads Ayaíribos. Compare also Plut. in Artax. 27, where Ecbatana to be priestess of Diana, whom he relates that Aspasia was chosen in they call Aneitin or Anaitin. "A fourth passage is from Eustat. ad Dion. Per. 846. we come "The authority for Tanais is thus suffiless hesitation in admitting it according ciently strong. Even the learned will feel to the vulgar form, when to examine the origin of both words. But that this Tanais or Anais was generally called Diana is confirmed by the passage of Plutarch just now referred to, and also by other authors among ancient wrihad the same sacred rites as Omanus. ters, and we shall show hereafter that it Therefore the goddes, which may be called in Hebrew non, is the divinity which at one time was worshipped by the Greeks under the foreign name of Tanaitis, Anaitis; at another, under the domestic appellation Artemis; (see the passages just referred to;) more properly Artemis the Persian; "What in fact is man? How is this name Artemis Tauropolos, Urania, Aphrodite,f derived? What other traces does anti- thence also Athene, which Creuzer quotes; quity afford of such a Deity? These we and thence also called Bellona. By Ar shall investigate severally; and in the taxerxes' order who introduced her worfirst place from the inscriptions we have ship from Babylon into the cities of Ecbareferred to, three points can be observed. tana, Susa, Pasargadæ, in the Persain 1st. That the Diety together with Baal Gulf, in Armenia, in Scythia Taurica, in Chaman, has been worshipped and invest- the cities and countries of Asia Minor, as ed with the titles of the Solar Baal (Carth. Zelæ, &c. in Pontus, Comana in Cappa2, 2, 5). 2nd. That it was of greater au- docia, Hierapolis in Phrygia, in Lydia, at thority than Chaman, which it everywhere Ephesus, she was worshipped with great precedes. 3rd. That it was usually as- honours, which renders Creuzer's conjecsimilated with Diana. But, as it appears, ture probable, that she represented the Tanais or Tanaitis was the domestic name, not of the Greek, but of the Oriental, Persian, or Armenian Diana, which Akerblad assimilated long since with on. In this view others were so desirous to concur, that they discovered Tanaitis rarely occurs in ancient writers, or but in one or two passages, and these probably vitiated, in which its vulgar name, Anaitis,* should be inserted: the modern Persian name of Venus, Anahid, Nahid, Nahidah, having that signification. But let these persons be cautious lest they rashly blot out the traces of an older and genuine form found in various writers, supported by numerous MSS., and of considerable authority in our inscriptions. For those passages of greater authority in which we read Tanais, are, one in Strabo, book xi. 13, 16; a second in Eusthatius II. 14, 295; a third, which alone De Sacy seems to have had before moon or light-giver, popov. Everywhere * This Artemis the Ephesian is rendered in the Arabic version of Acts, xxix. 24, Zoharah, (i. e. Venus.) Hesychius, on the other hand, gives Zaretis (i. e. Zoharah), Artemis, Persai. bo, 512, the temple of Minerva and Diana, more To which also belongs Azara, according to Stracorrectly Diana herself or Venus (Zoharah). Apuleius the African, (Golden Ass. xi. p. 254,Bip.), invoking the moon : Queen of Heaven, whether thou art the fair parent of corn, or the celestial Venus, or the sister of Phoebus and now adored in the glorious temples of Ephesus. * Especially Jerome, præf. ad Ephes. He (the apostle) wrote to the Ephesians worshipping and wears the cincture, but her the many-breastDiana; not her the huntress, who bears a bow ed whom the Greeks call moduacrov. There was a temple dedicated with great ceremony to the same Ephesian Diana at Carthagena, near the island of Hercules(Strabo lib. iii. p. 159,Casaub.), and another similar in the same coast at Emporia (Strabo b. c. c. 160.) |