Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/779

 SEMITIC

711

SEMITIC

furnish very valuable information concerning the religion, histoty, and civilization of the Palmyrans. Inscriptions have also been found in the vicinity of Palmyra or in distant countries whither the Palmyr- ans went either for commerce or as archers in the Roman armies. This explains the presence of Palmyran inscriptions in Egj'pt, Algeria, Rome, Hungary, and England.

E. Syriac Inscriplions. — Few belonging to the pagan period remain. The oldest is probably that of a queen (Helen of Adiabene, first century), carved on a sarcophagus in the Louvre, discovered at Jeru- salem in the so-called Tomb of the Kings. The others come for the most part from Edessa or its environs. Some funeral inscriptions are in mosaic and accom- pany portraits of the dead. Those of the Christian period, recovered throughout Syria and Mesopo- tamia, consist chiefly of dedications of churches or convents, and of epitaphs. One of the most interest- ing dedications (in the Museum of Brussels) comes from Zebed, south-east of Aleppo; it is trilingual, Syriac, Greek, and Arabic. Hundreds of funeral inscriptions have been discovered in the Nestorian cemeteries of Semirjetschie, north of Kashgar; they are mingled with Turkish and Mongolian names and date from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The most celebrated Syriac inscription is that of the stela of Si-ngan-fou, the authenticity of which no one now dreams of contesting. It is dated 7S1, and recalls the introduction into China of Christianity, at that time veiy flourishing. The inscriptions on the coins of the kings of Edessa make it possible to fix the chronology of these princes.

F. Matidaite Inscriptions. — The oldest and longest (278 lines) is on a leaden tablet preserved in the Brit- ish Museum; the others (about 50) are engraved or painted in ink on large terra-cotta vessels, found chiefly at Khouabir in Lower Babylonia. All these inscriptions consist of incantation formulae against evil spirits. They date from the period of the Sassanid Kings.

III. Hebrew Inscriptions. A. — Those which are of real philological or historical interest for their con- tents or antiquity are but few in number. The inscriptions found in the Jewish catacombs of Rome and Venoza, Italy (fourth — fifth century of our era), and those carved on tablets found in Babylonia (same period) are of only secondarj' interest. Much more important are those which have b(!en collected in Palestine, among which are several dedications of synagogues of the first centuries of the Christian era, dedications of tombs somewhar prior to our era, epitaphs graven on small stone coffers, called os.suaries* which mostly belong to the first century of our era. Lapidary inscriptions have been found at Gezer, one fixing the limits of the city, the other containing a fragment of a calendar which may date from the ninth century b. c; it was discovered in 1908. There have been found about a hundred archaic signets belonging to the period of the Kings of Juda and Israel. But the two most celebrated Hebrew inscrip- tions are that of the aqueduct of Siloe at Jerusalem and the famous stela of the Moabite King Mesa, found at Dhiban beyond the Jordan. The inscrip- tion of Siloe, discovered in 1880 and later taken to Constantinople, was graven on the rock to commem- orate the opening of the subterranean aqueduct which King Ezechias (720-691) had constructed in order to bring the waters of the fountain into the city. The stela of King Mesa relates how this prince, a tributary of Israel, made himself independent during the reign of Ahab (875-853). From a palaeographic and his- torical standpoint this inscription (now at the Louvre) is the most valuable monument of Semitic epigraphy.

B. Samaritan Inscriptions. — These are few in num- ber and of more or less recent date; they have been

discovered in Palestine and Damascus. Save that in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Bologna, which remains an enigma, they consist of quotations from the Pentateuch.

The next section of this article will deal with inscriptions which belong to the South Semitic languages.

I. HiMYARiTE Inscriptions. A. — MineanandSa- bean Inscriptions.- — The generic term Himyarite desig- nates the proto-Arabic monumental inscriptions which have been discovered, especially in the past half- century, in the south of the Arabian peninsula. The Mineans and Sabeans are the tribes whose dialect seems to have predominated. The appearance of the writings remotely derived from the Phoenician, the large num- ber of documents (2000 inscriptions and 400 coins), the length of the texts (often twenty to thirty lines), and especially the unwonted abundance of historical details endow this epigraphy with a special and long unsuspected character. It supplements the deficient information of ancient authors and enables us to reach a more or less exact knowledge of the social con- dition and religion of the tribes which occupied these regions during the two or three centuries prior to the Islamite movement. There have already been recov- ered the names of more than fifty kings or princes of these tribes.

B. Lihyanite Inscriptions. — Specimens of an alpha- bet, derived from the Himyarite but more cursive, are found in numerous graffiti on rocks or single stones throughout the Arabian peninsula. They emanate from nomadic tribes who wrote their names at different migrations. These inscriptions are called Tamudean or Lihyanite from the names of their authors.

C. Safaidic Inscriptions. — These derive their name from the Saffi, a desert and volcanic region north-east of Bosra, where they abound (more than a thousand). Their origin is the same as that of the above, but the alphabet is slightly different. They arc short graffiti similar to the Nabatean in.scriptions of Sinai. They seem to have been written in the second to fourth century of our era, like the Lihyanite inscriptions.

D. Ethiojnan Inscriptions. — These are still fewer in number and all posterior to the conversion of Ethiopia to Christianity. The royal inscriptions found at Aksum (fifth-sixth centurjO contain valuable historical details. The writing is similar to that still in use, a derivative of the Himyarite.

II. Arabic Inscriptions. — These are very numer- ous, but the most recent are of little interest. The most ancient, however, are a most useful conribution to history. The oldest (found at Nemara in the Hauran, now at the Louvre) is written in Nabatean characters. It dates from a. d. 328. There are a few of the period prior to Islam. Those which were written in the first centuries of the Mussulman invasion are in monu- mental letters called Cufic (from the name of the town of Cufa in Babylonia). They have been found on the mosques, tombs, public buildings, various articles of furniture, dishes, lamps, swords, etc. Arabic letters and inscriptions are often intertwined so as to form decorative motifs, which makes reading of them difficult. It will be readily perceived that a collection of the numerous inscriptions on the monu- ments erected by the Arabs in the conquered countries would be of great ser\'ice in arranging or com- pleting the details of their history; hence the Acad- emy of Inscriptions has decided to add this collection to the "Corpus", which was at first intended to comprise only the texts prior to Islam.

An almost complete bibliography down to 1898 (1234 articles) for North Semitic epigraphy will be found in Lidzbarrki, Handbuch. There ia no similar work for the South Semitic

epigraphy. Corpus inacriptionum semiticarum (Paris, 1881 ) ;

Chwolson, Corpus inscrip. hebr. (St. Petersburg, 1882); Reper- toire d' epigraphie semitique (Paris, 1901 ) ; Voou^, Syrie centrale

(Pans, 1868); Cowley, Aramaic papyri (I.ondon, 1906) ; S.\ch.\tj, Papyrus und Ostraka (Berlin, 1911); Littmann, Semitic In-