# Punic: A stela made for Tanit and Baal-Hammon



## Flaminius

Hello,

I found this stela, a votive stone monument in The National Museum of Carthago, Tunis.  A lot of letters are similar to Phoenician alphabets but some have changed a lot.  The following is my effort at transcription:
לרבת לתנת פן בעל ולאדן בעל־חמן אש נדר שפט בן חנבעל בן חנאב ?? בראשמן ושמא קלא​
As you can see in the picture I uploaded, I am not a very good photographer, sorry about that.  I wonder how my transcription was accurate and how the text is to be read.

Here is my translation.  I think I am okay with most of the first two lines but completely lost on the third.

To Lady Tanit, the presence of Baal, and to the Lord Baal-Hammon
[I don't understand "?Sh"]   the one who vows is Shafat, the son of Hannibaal, son of Hanniav (father has been graceful to me?).
?? (at least two illegible characters) by mercy.  and they (the gods) listened to his (offerer's) voice.

Could someone kindly help me?

Thanks in advance.


Edit:
According to the Museum's own report (link to a PDF with page focus), the monument is catalogued as cis 4426, if that means anything.


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## origumi

Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften (pp. 20 ff) contains many scriptures similar to the one you have. It's a preview only and I cannot find the exact one, yet the text you read seems to be formulaic with variants. So your reading is accurate, at least for the first half (generally speaking, I say not having the full source). Try searching there for words you have.

אוצר הכתובות הפניקיות also contains similar scriptures (many of them overlap the previous resource I guess), here too I cannot find your one. No full online text but you can search and get fragments.

פירוש על ספר במדבר (p. 159) explains that אש נדר means אשר נדר, so אש = _that_, _which_. The specific page is available online. It seems that inscriptions of this family are known as "אש נדר inscriptions".


How do you translate שמא as _listen_? Or maybe it is שמע? I see both expressions, שמא קלא and שמע קלא, that appear in different inscriptions (look for קלא in אוצר הכתובות הפניקיות referenced above), which is confusing.


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## fdb

Flaminius said:


> , the monument is catalogued as cis 4426, if that means anything.



CIS means "Corpus inscriptionum semiticarum". It was published a long time ago.


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## Flaminius

origumi said:


> How do you translate שמא as _listen_? Or maybe it is שמע? I see both expressions, שמא קלא and שמע קלא, that appear in different inscriptions (look for קלא in אוצר הכתובות הפניקיות referenced above), which is confusing.


Hi,
_Late Punic Epigraphy_ observes Neo-Punic (post the Roman destruction) lost _groniyot_ consonants.  As a result, letters such as aleph and ayin were used for a vowel.  The principal is the same as the Hebrew _matres lectionis_ but the phonetic values for the latter are different.  The stela belongs to an older aera but the weakest gutteral aleph could have been lost by then, being the first to be lost.  This is why we see variants like שמע קלא and שמא קלא for something like _shmu klo_ (they? heard his voice: Uncertain of the number of the verb; I am just making an analogy to Hebrew here). 

Considering now that aleph can be a mater lectionis elsewhere, I revised the transcription and translation:


> שפט בן חנבעל בן חנא בן בדאשמן ושמא קלא
> I read the formally illegible part as a single N.



Translation:
...Shafat, son of Hannibaal, son of Hanno, son of Bodeshmun, and they heard his voice.
I cannot find Bodeshmun itself but it consists of a productive prefix bod- (< ביד; in the hand of) and the name of a deity, Eshmun.



			
				origumi said:
			
		

> פירוש על ספר במדבר (p. 159) explains that אש נדר means אשר נדר, so אש = _that, which_. The specific page is available online. It seems that inscriptions of this family are known as "אש נדר inscriptions".


Wonderful but this leads to another question.  What would the antecedent be for this relative marker?



fdb said:


> CIS means "Corpus inscriptionum semiticarum". It was published a long time ago.


Great.  I will see if I can get access to copies in the libraries here.


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## Flaminius

According to CIS Pars Prima, Tomus III (MDCCCCXXVI), the inscription numbered 4426 ends as follows.


> נדר שפט בן חנבעל בן חנא בן בדאשמן כשמא קלא
> vovit Šafoṭus filius Ḥanniba‘alis, filii Ḥannonis, filii Bodešmuni; quia audivit vocem ejus.


(I mistook K for W.)

For reference, the Latin translation for the rest of the formula is found here (CIS I.438).  The page also mentions a name, בעלחנא.  If this is a typical Semitic name that confesses belief to a deity, it should mean "Baal has been graceful."  This probably is evidence to the א being the third person masculine singular ending of a preterite verb.

Then, the conjugation of שמא is also third person singular.  The question just who is the subject remains, but this is about all that needs to be elucidated.

Thanks everyone for help!


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## fdb

Yes, שמא   is late Punic for  שמע.


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## origumi

The two names חנבעל (Ḥanniba`al) and בעלחנא Ba`alḥanna are similar to (biblical through modern) Hebrew names חנניה and יוחנן, both with preterite singular masculine conjugation of root חננ. Yet I don't think the circumstances here alone are enough to be considered as an evidence that חנא is a Punic preterite verb conjugation (equivalent to Hebrew חנן), vs. for example the Hebrew noun חן = grace that could have Punic feminine form חנא. This could make בעלחנא mean "Ba`al [has] grace".


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## Flaminius

The CIS reading for בעלחנא is _Ba`alḥanno_.  It has a simulacrum in Bible; Baal-hanan is an Edomite king in Genesis 36:38-39. And here is an interesting book with onomastica; _The Pre-Hellenistic Israelite Anthroponymy and Prosopography_ by Ran Zadok.

To indirectly support the relationship between Pn. ḥanno and Hb. ḥanan, "grace" is ḥn without the feminine suffix in Late Punic (_Late Punic Epigraphy_ p 46).


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