Yatonmilk


Yatonmilk was a Phoenician King of Sidon, and a vassal to the Achaemenid king of kings Darius I.

Etymology

The Romanized form Yatonmilk comes from the Phoenician ??????‎, meaning "the king gives" from ??? and ???. Semitist and biblical scholar Marvin H. Pope posited that the epithet mlk may be an abbreviation of the name of the Phoenician god Melkart which means "king of the city".

Epigraphic sources

Yatonmilk's name was attested on many building stone-incised dedications dubbed the Bodashtart inscriptions that were found at the Temple of Eshmun in the hinterland of the city of Sidon in Lebanon. Despite being mentioned in the inscriptions, nothing is known about his reign due to the lack of further material or epigraphic evidence.
Bodashtart, Yatonmilk's father who is dubbed the 'builder king', carried out an extensive expansion and restoration project of the Temple of Eshmun; he left more than thirty dedicatory inscriptions at the temple site. The first phase of the works involved adding a second podium at the base of the temple. During this construction phase inscriptions were carved on the added podium's foundation stones around 530 BC, these inscriptions, known as KAI 15, do not mention Yatonmilk. A second set of inscriptions were placed on restoration ashlar stones; these stones mention Yatonmilk and emphasize his legitimacy as heir, associate him with the reign of his father, and assign a share of credit to Yatonmilk for the construction project. One example of the Bodashtart's inscriptions reads: "The king Bodashtart and his legitimate heir Yatonmilk, king of the Sidonians, grandson of king Eshmunazar, king of the Sidonians, built this temple to his god Eshmun, the Sacred Prince". Another translation reads: "King Bodashtort, and his pious son, Yatonmilk, king of the Sidonians, descendants '' of King Eshmunazor, king of the Sidonians, this house he built to his god, to Eshmun, lord/god of the sanctuary."
Some scholars misidentified Yatonmilk as the father of Bodashtart; this was successfully contested by later epigraphists.

Genealogy

Yatonmilk was a descendant of Eshmunazar I's dynasty. Eshmunazar's heir was his son Tabnit, who fathered Eshmunazar II from his sister Amoashtart. Tabnit died before the birth of Eshmunazar II, and Amoashtart ruled in the interlude until the birth of her son, then was co-regent until he reached adulthood. Bodashtart was the nephew of Tabnit and Amoashtart and acceded to the throne after the death of Eshmunazar II at the young age of fourteen. Yatonmilk is the son of Bodashtart.