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Cirta steles
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Cirta steles are almost 1,000 Punic funerary[citation needed] and votive steles found in Cirta (today Constantine, Algeria) in a cemetery located on a hill immediately south of the Salah Bey Viaduct.
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The first group of steles were published by Auguste Celestin Judas in 1861. The Lazare Costa inscriptions were the second group of these inscriptions found; they were discovered between 1875 and 1880 by Lazare Costa, a Constantine-based Italian antiquarian. Most of the steles are now in the Louvre.[2][3][4] These are known as KAI 102–105.
In 1950, hundreds of additional steles were excavated from the same location – then named El Hofra – by André Berthier, director of the Gustave-Mercier Museum (today the Musée national Cirta) and Father René Charlier, professor at the Constantine seminary.[5] Many of these steles are now in the Musée national Cirta.[6] Over a dozen of the most notable inscriptions were later published in Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften and are known as 106-116 (Punic) and 162-164 (Neo Punic).