Cippi of Melqart

As Cippi of Melqart or Cippi of Malta, two Phoenician stelae of the 2nd century BC called alabaster that carry bilingual Phoenician- Greek inscriptions. One of the two Cippi is now preserved in the Louvre in Paris, the second is located in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta in Malta.

When the Greek inscription was published in 1853 in the 3rd volume of Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, it was reported that they were found in Marsaxlokk. This location has not been previously mentioned, and more than a century later, the claim was refuted. The assignment may have been found through inference, because it was adopted with some plausibility that the Cippi Heracles were dedicated and were set up in his temple.

The first mention of the two pieces can be found in 1694 in a letter of Ignazio Constanzo to Antonio Bulifon which this published in 1697. End of the 17th century, they were in the collection of Giovanfrancesco Abela of Malta. 1735 published JC Guyot de la Marne for the first time a picture of the inscription. Jean -Jacques Barthélémy (1716-1795) based on a cast of it was in 1758 able to read the inscriptions and begin deciphering the Phoenician- Punic language. 1782 gave Emmanuel de Rohan - Polduc, the Grand Master of the Order of St. John, in memory of this performance one of the Cippi Louis XVI .. he was initially kept in the Académie des Inscriptions et des Belles Lettres in Paris, in 1796 he entered the Bibliothèque Mazarine. In 1864 he was given the suggestion of the orientalist Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy - Le Louvre ( Inventory No. AO 4818 ).

The concept is in Phoenician Cippus context (unlike the Etruscan sh. Cippus ) for a small column with or without capital, which was used as a mile, landmark or monument. Both Maltese Cippi are unusual because they are in two parts, the base is designed as a rectangular block in the form of a Votivaltars provided with Greek and Phoenician inscriptions. Both blocks support a column that represents a " candlestick ", whose lower part is decorated in low relief with acanthus leaves. The copy in the Louvre is broken up. The bilingual inscription is on the base, consisting of three lines in Greek and four in the Phoenician language. The relations between Malta and the Phoenicians began in the 8th century BC The inscription dates from the 2nd century BC, when the Maltese islands were occupied by the Romans.

Inscriptions

The text of the inscriptions on both Cippi is identical, only the distribution between the lines varies slightly; the following is the text of the stele is represented in the Louvre:

It is a consecration of two brothers from Tyre to the god Melqart, which is equated with Heracles.

This inscription, which contains 18 of the 22 letters of the Phoenician script, was Jean- Jacques Barthélémy begin deciphering the language. In the tableau of Barthélémy, which was published in 1764 missing only the letters " tet " and "pe ".