Carthaginian tombstones
Carthaginian tombstones are Punic language-inscribed tombstones excavated from the city of Carthage over the last 200 years.
The first such discoveries were published by Jean Emile Humbert in 1817, Hendrik Arent Hamaker in 1828, Christian Tuxen Falbe in 1833 and Thomas Reade in 1837. Between 1817 and 1856, 17 inscriptions were published in total; in 1861 Nathan Davis discovered 73 tablets, marking the first large scale discovery.
The steles were first published together in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum; the first focused collection was published by Jean Ferron in 1976. Ferron identified four types of funerary steles:
- Type I: Statues
- Type II: Bas-reliefs
- Type III: niche monuments or naiskos
- Type IV: Engraved steles.
Primary sources
- Jean Emile Humbert, Notice sur quatre cippes sépulcraux et deux fragments, découverts en 1817, sur le sol de l'ancienne Carthage.
- Hendrik Arent Hamaker, Miscellanea Phoenicia
- Christian Tuxen Falbe, Recherches sur l'emplacement de Carthage
- Augustus Wollaston Franks. . Archaeologia, 38, 202–236. doi:10.1017/S0261340900001387
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- Charles Ernest Beulé,
- Alfred Louis Delattre. . In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 46e année, N. 5, 1902. pp. 522–523. DOI : https://doi.org/10.3406/crai.1902.17295
- Alfred Louis Delattre, Philippe Berger . In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 48e année, N. 5, pp. 505–512. DOI : https://doi.org/10.3406/crai.1904.19929
Secondary sources
- Mendleson, Carole,, Archaeology & history in Lebanon. 2001, Num 13, pp 45–50
- Bénichou-Safar Hélène, Chapitre III. LES INSCRIPTIONS FUNÉRAIRES, . Paris : Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 452 p.
- Stéphane Gsell, 1920–30,, Tome 4, Chapitre IV, Les Pratiques Funéraires
- Lopez and Amadasi,, 2013, In book: The Tophet in the Phoenician Mediterranean Chapter: The Epigraphy of the TophetPublisher: Essedue Edizioni, VeronaEditors: Paolo Xella