The Kuttamuwa stele is an basalt funerary stele with an Aramaic inscription referring to Kuttamuwa, an 8th-century BCE royal official. It was found in Samʾal, in southeastern Turkey, in 2008, by the Neubauer Expedition of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.
Description The stele measures tall and wide. It was a stele for Kuttamuwa, an 8th-century BCE royal official from Samʾal who ordered an inscribed stele, that was to be erected upon his death.
Inscription The inscription requested that his mourners commemorate his life and his afterlife with feasts "for my soul that is in this stele." It is one of the earliest references in a Near East culture to a soul as a separate entity from the body.
The translation of the stele:
Text
Pardee (2009) TranscriptionPardee, Dennis (2009). "A New Aramaic Inscription from Zincirli." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, (356), 53.ʾnk . ktmw . ʿbd [.] pnmw . [zy] . qnt . l[y] . nṣb . bḥyy . wšmt . wth . bsyr/d . ʿlmy . wḥggt . syr/d . zn . šwr . lhdd . qr/dpd/rl . wybl . lngd/r . ṣwd/rn . wybl . lšmš . wybl . lhdd . krmnwybl . lkbbw . wybl . lnbšy . zy . bnṣb . zn . wʿt . mn . mn . bny . ʾw .mn bny ʾš . wyhy . lh .nsyr/d . znn . wlw yqḥ . mnḥyl . krm . znn . šʾ .ywmn . lywmn . wyhrg . bnbšywyšwyly . šq
Bibliography Herrman, Virginia & Schloen, J. David, In Remembrance of Me: Featings with the Dead in the Ancient Middle East, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago 37, 2014 PDF Schloen, J., & Fink, A. (2009). New Excavations at Zincirli Höyük in Turkey (Ancient Samʾal) and the Discovery of an Inscribed Mortuary Stele. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, (356), 1-13. Retrieved September 16, 2020 Pardee, Dennis (2009). "A New Aramaic Inscription from Zincirli." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, (356), 51–71.
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