Deir Alla inscription

The Deir 'Alla inscription or Balaam inscription,^[1] numbered KAI 312, is a famous inscription discovered during a 1967 excavation in Deir 'Alla, Jordan.^[2] It is currently at the Jordan Archaeological Museum. It is written in a peculiar Northwest Semitic dialect, and has provoked much debate among scholars and had a strong impact on the study of Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions.^[3][4]

Deir Alla inscription
Drawing of the Deir 'Alla inscription
Created	c. 825 BC
Discovered	1967 Balqa, Jordan
Present location	Amman, Amman Governorate, Jordan

The excavation revealed a multiple-chamber structure that had been destroyed by an earthquake during the Persian period, on the wall of which was written a story relating visions of Bal'am, son of Be'or, a "seer of the gods" (BL M BR B R Š ḤZH LHN), the same name as Balaam, son of Be'or, in Numbers 22–24 and in other passages of the Bible. The Deir Alla inscription's depiction of Bala'am differs from that in the Book of Numbers. Bal'am's god is associated with the goddess Šagar-we-Ishtar. Deities with such names, "Šagar-and-Ishtar" (or Aštar^[5]) certainly are known to history, but quite separately. The enigmatic narrative also foregrounds the Shaddayin (שדין) who establish a council.^[6] It also features the word Elohin, taken to mean "gods" in the plural rather than the Hebrew deity.

The inscriptions were on ink on plastered wall; black and red inks were used as in the plaster inscriptions at Kuntillet Ajrud. Red emphasized certain parts of the text.^[7][8] The inscriptions were written with a broad nibbed pen with ink, an extremely early example.^[9] The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies describes it as "the oldest example of a book in a West Semitic language written with an alphabet, and the oldest piece of Aramaic literature."^[10]

Reconstruction and translation

When the text was found, it was broken into fragments, which were lying on the ground. The fragments are poorly preserved,^[11] and only a part of the text has been found. In all, 119 pieces of ink-inscribed plaster were recovered. The wall, near the summit of the tel, was felled by a tremor.^[8]

Scholars have succeeded in arranging many of the fragments into two large 'combinations'. At least to some extent, they had use of information about which fragments were found close together or wide apart on the ground.^[11] Still, uncombined fragments remain. For the reading of damaged or missing parts of the text, they sometimes had to guess; however, where the same group of words seems to appear in several places, but with different parts damaged in different occurrences, they could reasonably reconstruct a combined text.

The first complete translation and reconstruction of the inscription was published in 1981.^[11] Today, the text in modern Hebrew letters is available online. The text is difficult to read and to interpret.^[12] Here is one reconstruction and translation of the first combination:^[13]

1. [This is] the book of [Ba]laam, [son of Beo]r, a seer of the gods. To him came the gods at night. [And they spoke to] him
2. according to the utterance of El, and they spoke to [Bala]am, son of Beor, thus: [ ... ]
3. And Balaam arose in the morning, [ ... ] And he was not [able to eat. And he fast]ed while he was weep-
4. ing greviously. And his people came to him, and the[y said] to Balaam, son of Beor: "Why do you fast? [And w]hy do you weep?" And he sa-
5. id to them: "Sit down! I will show you what the Shadd[ayin are ...ing] Now come, see what the Elohin are about to do! The Elo[h]in gathered,
6. while the Shaddayin met in assembly, and said to Sha[mash]: "Thou mayest break the bolts of heaven, in thy clouds let there be gloominess, and no bril-
7. liance, darkness(?) and not thy radiance(?) thou mayest cause terror [by] the gloomy [cl]ouds– but do not be angry forever! For the swift is re-
8. proaching the eagle, and the vultures' brood the ostrich. The st[ork is ...ing] the [young of the] hawk, and the owl the chicks of the heron. The swallow is ...ing the
9. dove, and the sparrow the [ ... ] And [ ... ] staff. Where the stick would lead sheep, hares are eating
10. [the g]rass. [ ... ] The [ ... ] are drinking wine. The hyenas are listening to instruction. The young of the [ ... ]
11. while [the ... ] is laughing at wise men. And the poor woman is preparing an ointment of myrrh. And the priestess
12. [ ... ] And...
13. ...while the deaf are hearing from afar.
14. ...And all are beholding the oppression (exercised) by Shagar-and-Ishtar.
15. ...the leopard. The piglet is driving out the (you-
16. [ng] of the...) [ ... ] ...destruction and ruins.

A more recent and complete English translation can also be found online.^[14]

The second combination:^{[11][note 1]}

1. [ ... ]
2. [ ... ]
3. [ ... ]
4. [ ... ] El satisfies himself with lovemaking.^{[note 2]}
5. [ ... ] Why is the tot^{[note 3]} in the tophet^{[note 4]} with the foliage?^{[note 5]}
6. So that El will be satisfied. He will make to the house of eternity.^{[note 6]}
7. a house which no travelers enter, nor does a bridegroom, [a house ... ]
8. as wormrot^{[note 7]} from a grassy grave. From the reckless affairs of man, and from the lustful desires [ ... ]
9. Your sacrifices make poor haruspecy. [ ... ]
10. [From] the bed, (or you will) cover him with one garment. Look, if you mistreat (lit. hate) him he will falter [ ... ]
11. punishment, [and wormrot] under your head, you shall lie on your eternal bed. To pass away to [ ... ]
12. [ ... ] all [ ... ] in their heart! The corpse moans in his heart!^{[note 8]} He moans [ ... ]
13. daughter. There, sacrifices shall be held Bal[ ... ] There is no compassion when death seizes an infant! And an infant [ ... ]
14. An infant [ ... ] there [ ... ] shall endure, he sighs to his heart as he approaches [Sheol ... ]
15. To the edge of She[ol ... ] and the shadow of the hedge [ ... ] The quest of a king becomes his "moth",^{[note 9]} and the q[ue]st of [ ... ]
16. [ ... ] and [ ... ] seers. Your quest has become dis[tant] from you! Why [ ... ]
17. To know how to deliver an oracle to his people, you have been condemned for what you have said, and banned from pronouncing words of execration.
18. [ ... ]
19. [ ... ]
20. [ ... ]
21. [ ... ]

Language

South Gileadite
Deir 'Alla, Deer ˤAlla[15]
Native to	Jordan
Region	Deir Alla
Era	880–770 BC[12]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic West Semitic Central Semitic Northwest Semitic (unclassified) South Gileadite
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Linguist List	xdr
Glottolog	None

Though containing some features of Aramaic, such as the word bar "(son of [Beor])" rather than the Canaanite ben, the Deir Alla inscription also has many elements of Canaanite languages, leading some to believe it was written in a dialect of Canaanite rather than an early form of Aramaic. The inscription has been dated to 880–770 BC.^[12]

Klaus Beyer calls the language South Gileadite.^[16]

Holger Gzella reckons the mixture of Canaanite vocabulary and narration with a primarily Aramaic grammatical core reflect a translation of a Syria-Palestinian story into a literary Aramaic text.^[17] The Semitic Etymological Dictionary categorizes the Deir Alla language as simply "dialect of the inscription from Deir Alla."^[18]

Unknown script and cannabis findings

The dig's conclusion was delayed by the surprise discovery of this and other tablets in unknown script.^[19]

In the 1960s, in addition to hundreds of vessels like bowls and jars, seven clay tablets were found with an unknown script. They haven't been fully deciphered,^[20] nor has their clay been tested to see if it's local to Deir Alla.^[19]

Cannabis has been found as hemp here and at another Iron Age cultic site, Tel Arad in the Negev, as burned incense or drug.^[21]

See also

• Balaam, biblical figure
• Beor (biblical figure)
• El Shaddai, one name of the God of Israel
• KNMY inscription from Carthage; mentions child sacrifice
• Pethor, home town of Bala'am in the Bible
• Samalian language, Semitic language
• Sukkot (place), identified by some with Deir Alla

Notes

1. In large measure following Dewrell 2017.
2. The idiom rwy ddn, Heb rawah dodim: 'to satisfy oneself with lovemaking'. After Levine.
3. nqr: 'sprout, scion'; see Isaiah 11:1: "… a shoot from the stump of Jesse". However, Levine says nqr means 'corpse'; it could be both or wordplay.
4. Following Hackett: mdr, 'firepit'.
5. Or something wet.
6. Ambiguity follows original.
7. 'Wormrot' is Levine's word based on Isaiah 14:11: tahteyka yussa' rimmah 'wormrot is to be set as your bed'.
8. Or, 'the child sighs to itself'.
9. The citation mark as given by Levine. The phrase is šʔlt. mlk. ssh – ssh (for which Levine tentatively tries "moth") could also mean 'horse'. The common word mlk can mean 'king' or 'sacrifice'. If ʔlt is the root, it could have many possible meanings.