The Yehimilk inscription is a Phoenician inscription (KAI 4 or TSSI III 6) published in 1930, currently in the museum of Byblos Castle.
It was published in Maurice Dunand's Fouilles de Byblos (volume I, 1926âÂÂ1932, numbers 1141, plate XXXI).
It is dated to the 10th century BCE, and contains the earliest known Phoenician reference to Baalshamin. This name was originally a title of Baal Hadad, in the 2nd millennium BC, but it came to designate a distinct god circa 1000 BC.
Text of the inscription
The inscription reads:
Bibliography
- Christopher Rollston, "The Dating of the Early Royal Byblian Phoenician Inscriptions: A Response to Benjamin Sass." MAARAV 15 (2008): 57âÂÂ93.
- Benjamin Mazar, The Phoenician Inscriptions from Byblos and the Evolution of the Phoenician-Hebrew Alphabet, in The Early Biblical Period: Historical Studies (S. Ahituv and B. A. Levine, eds., Jerusalem: IES, 1986 [original publication: 1946]): 231âÂÂ247.
- William F. Albright, The Phoenician Inscriptions of the Tenth Century B.C. from Byblus, JAOS 67 (1947): 153âÂÂ154.
- Corinne Bonnet. Existe-t-il un B'l gbl. àByblos. àpropos de l'inscription de Yehimilk (KAI 4). Ugarit-Forschungen, 1993, 25, pp.25-34. â¨hal-01865311â©
References