I, Kuttamuwa, servant of [the king] Panamuwa, am the one who oversaw the production of this stele for myself while still living. I placed it in an eternal chamber [?] and established a feast at this chamber: a bull for [the god] Hadad, a ram for [the god] Shamash and a ram for my soul that is in this stele.
This is Pardee’s translation of the new inscription found at Zincirli. For more info including a picture see the NY Times article.
Fascinating on many levels. It’s been awhile since I’ve worked with any Sam’al, so I’ll trust Pardee’s translation (although he has a tendency to translate in the “dynamic equivalent” style). I wonder how far we can press Pardee’s translation into a theology of separation of life and soul. In the Middle Assyrian dedicatory inscriptions we sometimes find the king offering sacrifices “for my own life (baltu)” (Sorry I don’t have the references readily available). I’m curious if the semantic range of Sam’al nabsh is really that much different from nephesh, or even the Akkadian napshu.
Also, is it just me, or does the “stele” look more like an amulet (although it would hang upside down)
Kyle–
I see why you might see it as an amulet, but I suspect that the “nubbin” on the bottom of the stela was a stone mortise which was fitted into a stone base to stabilize it.
Kaufman’s take on the “nabsh” is that it doesn’t mean soul in this inscription at all, but rather “funeral monument”. This meaning of nephesh occurs in Hebrew and Aramaic frequently elsewhere.
More pertinently, “food for the nabsh” after death occurs in the Zincirli inscription of Panamuwa I, where it clearly refers to some sort of personal identity of the king in the shadow world.
So the claim that this “a first” is a bit off the mark.
See Donner and Röllig Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften text 214 and their comments Band II: Kommentar p. 220.
It would be interesting to know which Panamuwa this Kuttamuwa was a servant of.
The idea of food for the nabsh after death is found in the Inscription of Panamuwa I, given in Donner and Röllig Kanaanäische und Aramäisce Inschriften No. 214, Zincirli I.
The phrase seems to be a clear reference to some kind of personal identity of the king in the after life.
See the comments in Donner and Röllig, Band II, Kommentar p.220.
There were two Panamuwas. It would be nice to know if this Kuttamuwa was a ‘servant’ of the first or the second.
When will the transcription be available?