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Mdina steles

Topic: Social

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The surviving stele (61A)

The Mdina steles are two Phoenician language inscriptions found near the city of Mdina (ancient Maleth), Malta, in 1816. The findspot is disputed; the oldest known description places it near the Tal-Virtù Church. The surviving stele is currently in the National Museum of Archaeology, Malta; the other stele has been considered lost for more than a century.[1]

They were widely publicized by Wilhelm Gesenius as Melitensia Tertia and Melitensia Quarta ("Maltese 3rd" and "Maltese 4th"). They are also known as KAI 61A,B or CIS i 123A,B.

Stele 61B has been dated to the sixth century BCE on the basis of letter forms.[2]

Text of the inscriptions

The two inscriptions read:[3][4]

(A, lines 1-6) NṢB MLK / B‘L ’Š Š/M NḤM LB/‘L-ḤMN ’/DN K ŠM‘ / QL DBRY (This is) a stele (commemorating) a molk-Ba‘al (or molkomor?) that Naḥḥum presented to Baal-ḥammon, his Lord, because he has heard the sound of his word(s) (i.e., Ba‘al had answered Naḥḥum's prayers).
(B, lines 1-6) NṢB MLK / ’MR ’Š Š/[M ’R]Š LB/‘L-[ḤMN] ’DN [K Š]M‘ / QL [DB]RY (This is) a stele (commemorating) a «molkomor» that ’Aris presented to Baal-ḥammon, his Lord, because he has heard the sound of his word(s).

A "molkomor" (as in B) was a "substitute" sacrificial offering to Ba‘al of a lamb instead of a child. The word is a composite of molk or Moloch, traditionally the Punic god Ba‘al but more probably meaning "(human) sacrifice (of a child)",[5] and ’MR (cf. Hebrew ’immēr), "lamb".[6] Another possible reading is "MLK’SR", meaning Moloch-Osiris, who was also worshiped by the Phoenicians.[7]

It is not clear whether molk-Ba‘al in A is a variant of molkomor,[8] or that 61A refers to a real child sacrifice, while 61B refers to a substitute offering.[9]

Gallery

  • Close up of the surviving stele

  • Close up of the surviving stele

  • The inscriptions in Hamaker's 1828 Miscellanea Phoenicia

  • Two versions of Melitensia Tertia and of Melitensia Quarta, in Gesenius's 1837 Scripturae Linguaeque Phoeniciae Monumenta

References

  1. ↑ Vella, Nicholas C, Vases, bones and two Phoenician inscriptions : an assessment of a discovery made in Malta in 1816, Ritual, religion and reason : studies in the ancient world in honour of Paolo Xella / edited by Oswald Loretz ... [et al.]. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2013. p. 589-605. ISBN:9783868350876
  2. ↑ Dussaud, René (1946). "Précisions épigraphiques sur les sacrifices puniques d'enfants". Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 90 (3): 371-387: pp. 377-378. https://www.persee.fr/doc/crai_0065-0536_1946_num_90_3_78010. Retrieved 21 May 2022.  (Persée)
  3. ↑ Donner, Herbert; Rölig, Wolfgang (2002). Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften (5 ed.). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. p. I, 17. 
  4. ↑ Krahmalkov, Charles R. (2000). Phoenician-Punic Dictionary. Leuven: Peeters / Departement Oosterse Studies. ISBN 90-429-0770-3. 
  5. ↑ Dussaud (1946).
  6. ↑ García y Bellido, Antonio (1967). Les religions orientales dans l'Espagne romaine. Leiden: Brill. p. 4. ISBN 978-90-04-30826-8. 
  7. ↑ Slouschz, Nahoum (1942). Thesaurus of Phoenician Inscriptions. Dvir. pp. 125-127. 
  8. ↑ Krahmalkov (2000).
  9. ↑ Dussaud (1946)



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