Yehimilk inscription

The Yehimilk inscription is a Phoenician inscription (KAI 4 or TSSI III 6) published in 1930,^[1][2] currently in the museum of Byblos Castle.

Yehimilk inscription
Created	c. 955 BC
Discovered	before 1931 Byblos, Keserwan-Jbeil, Lebanon
Present location	Byblos, Keserwan-Jbeil, Lebanon

Yehimilk Phoenician Inscription in the Byblos Castle Museum

It was published in Maurice Dunand's Fouilles de Byblos (volume I, 1926–1932, numbers 1141, plate XXXI).^[3]

It is dated to the 10th century BCE, and contains the earliest known Phoenician reference to Baalshamin.^[4]

Text of the inscription

The inscription reads:^[5][6]

(1)

BT

Z

BNY

YḤMLK

MLK

GBL

BT Z BNY YḤMLK MLK GBL

[This is] the temple that he has built, Yehimilk, king of Byblos.

(2-3)

H’T

ḤWY

KL

MPLT

HBTM

/

’L

H’T ḤWY KL MPLT HBTM / ’L

It was he who restored all these ruins of temples.

(3-4)

Y’RK

B‘L-ŠMM

WB‘L(T)

/

GBL

Y’RK B‘L-ŠMM WB‘L(T) / GBL

May they [the gods] prolong —Baalsamem, and Ba'al(at) Gebal,

(4-5)

WMPḤRT

’L

GBL

/

QDŠM

WMPḤRT ’L GBL / QDŠM

and the assembly of the holy gods of Byblos—

(5-6)

YMT

YḤMLK

WŠNTW

/

‘L

GBL

YMT YḤMLK WŠNTW / ‘L GBL

[may these gods prolong] Yehimilk's days and his years over Byblos,

(6-7)

K

MLK

ṢDQ

WMLK

/

YŠR

K MLK ṢDQ WMLK / YŠR

because [he is] a just king and a righteous king

(7)

LPN

’L

GBL

QDŠM

[H’]

LPN ’L GBL QDŠM [H’]

before the holy gods of Byblos, he.

Bibliography

• Christopher Rollston, "The Dating of the Early Royal Byblian Phoenician Inscriptions: A Response to Benjamin Sass." MAARAV 15 (2008): 57–93.
• 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]): 231–247.
• William F. Albright, The Phoenician Inscriptions of the Tenth Century B.C. from Byblus, JAOS 67 (1947): 153–154.
• Corinne Bonnet. Existe-t-il un B'l gbl. à Byblos. À propos de l'inscription de Yehimilk (KAI 4). Ugarit-Forschungen, 1993, 25, pp.25-34. ⟨hal-01865311⟩