Carpentras Stele

About

The Carpentras Stele is an Egyptian stele now in Carpentras in southern France. It is the first inscription written in the Phoenician alphabet to have been published, and was identified a century later as Aramaic. It is housed in the Bibliothèque Inguimbertine, in a "dark corner" on the first floor.

Older Aramaic texts have been found dating from as early as the 9th century BC, but the Carpentras Stele is the first Aramaic text to have been published in modern times. It is known as KAI 269, CIS II 141 and TAD C20.5. It is a funerary dedication to an unknown lady called Taba; the first line of the image depicts her standing before the god of the underworld with her arms raised and the second, her lying down, dead, being prepared for burial.

The textual inscription is typical of Egyptian funerary tablets in that she is described as having done nothing bad in her life, and wishes her well in the presence of Osiris. A long-running scholarly debate has focused on the language of the inscription, and when it was written as prose or poetry. It was the first Northwest Semitic (i.e.

Canaanite or Aramaic) inscription published anywhere in modern times (the Cippi of Melqart inscriptions, reported...