Palmyrene inscriptions

Palmyrene funerary foundation inscription in the Louvre, discovered in Palmyra: AO 2203, PAT 0468, RES 1072

Palmyrene inscriptions are a large corpus of Aramaic inscriptions discovered primarily in the ancient caravan city of Palmyra in central Syria. The texts date mainly from the 1st century BCE to the 3rd century CE and are written in the Palmyrene Aramaic dialect using the Palmyrene script.

The decipherment of Palmyrene was the first decipherment of a dead language in modern times, in 1754. The first published and translated of the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions was a Palmyrene inscription, and today the longest known Canaanite or Aramaic inscription – the Palmyra Tariff – is also Palmyrene. Peter T. Daniels described the ultimate decipherment by Jean-Jacques Barthélemy as straightforward, since: "the copies were (finally) reliable; there were obviously-paired bilinguals; they contained proper names; there were one-to-one correspondences between letters in the two versions; the unknown was in a familiar language; the identity of that language was known; the script was closely related to and resembled known ones".

Approximately 3,200 such inscriptions are known; the Palmyrene Aramaic Texts (PAT) corpus includes 2,832 inscriptions, and Jean-Baptiste Yon’s subsequent L’épigraphie palmyrénienne depuis PAT, 1996–2011 added an extra 185 inscriptions. This compares with over c.500 in Greek and c.50 in Latin found in the region of Palmyra. Most of the known inscriptions were found in Palmyra and its surrounding necropoleis during archaeological excavations at Palmyra in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Others were discovered at sites connected with Palmyrene trade networks across the Near East and the Mediterranean, including Dura-Europos and Egypt. The texts are typically carved on stone monuments, funerary busts, tomb architecture, altars, and building blocks.

Most of the inscriptions are undated, with exact provenance unknown. The earliest dated Palmyrene inscription is a dedication by the priests of Bel from 44 BC, and none are known following the defeat of Zenobia by Aurelian in 272 CE. After this, Greek inscriptions in Palmyra continued in reduced numbers until 562 CE, Latin disappeared after the early fourth century, and a small number of Hebrew inscriptions are known from the fourth century.

A number of multilingual inscriptions are known – many Greek inscriptions are bilingual with an Aramaic version, and some are trilingual with the addition of Latin. The inscriptions are crucial to scholarly knowledge of Palmyra, as classical texts are limited to excerpts from Pliny the Elder (Natural History 5.88) and Appian (Civil Wars 5.9), and later narratives such as Zosimus describing the rise and fall of Palmyra under Odaenathus and Zenobia.

Today, many inscriptions are preserved in museums such as the National Museum of Damascus, the Louvre, the British Museum, and other international collections. A number of inscriptions in situ or at the Palmyra Museum were subject to the destruction of cultural heritage by the Islamic State between 2015 and 2017.

The first published Palmyrene inscription was the altar inscription from Rome now catalogued as CIS II 3902 (Rome 1), published by Jan Gruter in 1616. A second inscription, also from Rome, CIS II 3903 (Rome 2), was later published by Jacob Spon in 1683. These inscriptions, preserved in the Capitoline Museums, were recognised as belonging to an unknown script associated with the ancient city of Palmyra. About a decade later, following the first modern European expedition to Palmyra in 1691, William Hallifax published an account in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1695, including a copy of an inscription from a lintel from the entrance gate to the modern village later catalogued as CIS II 4202. Halifax observed that the unfamiliar script frequently appeared beneath Greek inscriptions and likely represented the same text in the local language. Shortly afterward, Edward Bernard and Thomas Smith published a collection of Palmyrene inscriptions in 1698, including what later became known as CIS II 3944, CIS II 4214, and CIS II 3943. However, all these copies were inaccurate, making decipherment challenging.

The decisive breakthrough occurred after the visit of Robert Wood and James Dawkins to Palmyra in 1751. Their illustrated work The Ruins of Palmyra (1753) provided more accurate copies of numerous inscriptions, including the important Greek–Palmyrene bilingual inscription which became known as CIS II 3940. Using this material together with the previously published inscriptions (CIS II 3902, 3903, 4202, 3944, 4214, and 3943), the French scholar Jean-Jacques Barthélemy and the English antiquarian John Swinton independently deciphered the script in 1754.

Barthélemy’s method relied on comparing the Greek and Palmyrene texts of the bilingual inscriptions. By identifying repeated proper names and chronological formulas in inscriptions such as CIS II 3940, he was able to assign phonetic values to the Palmyrene letters and reconstruct the alphabet. Within a short time he produced a working reading of the inscriptions and demonstrated that the language was a dialect of Aramaic. The decipherment of Palmyrene thus became the first successful decipherment of a previously "dead" ancient script in modern scholarship.

The first significant and accurate group of inscriptions was published by Robert Wood and James Dawkins following their visit to Palmyra in 1751; their book (1753) included copies of 11 Greek-Palmyrene bilingual inscriptions, 15 Greek-only and two Palmyrene-only inscriptions. The next significant publication of new inscriptions came a century later following the expedition of William Henry Waddington in 1861, organized on the advice of Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé. Waddington's records of 144 Palmyrene inscriptions were published by de Vogüé in 1868. At the beginning of the twentieth century selections of inscriptions were published George Albert Cooke and Mark Lidzbarski, and comprehensive corpus of Palmyrene Aramaic inscriptions was produced in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum (1926–1949), edited by Jean-Baptiste Chabot. The next phase of significant publications were made by Jean Cantineau, who initiated the series Inventaire des inscriptions de Palmyre (1930–1939), later continued by Jean Starcky, Javier Teixidor, and Adnan Bounni. In 1996 a consolidated collection of the Aramaic inscriptions was published as Palmyrene Aramaic Texts (PAT) by Delbert R. Hillers and Eleonora Cussini as part of the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon project. The work assembled approximately 2,830 inscriptions and remains the principal reference for Palmyrene Aramaic epigraphy.

These major scholarly corpora and catalogues are listed below:

• CIS – Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, an early comprehensive collection of Semitic inscriptions. The first Palmyrene volume (II t.3 f.1) was edited by Jean-Baptiste Chabot in 1926.
• NE - Handbuch der Nordsemitischen Epigraphik, 1898
• IIP / Inv – Inventaire des inscriptions de Palmyre, 1930-75 in twelve fascicules, a catalogue of Palmyrene inscriptions not included in CIS.
• IP - Jean Cantineau's Inscriptions palmyréniennes, 1930
• Tad - Jean Cantineau's Tadmorea in Syria, 1931-38
• RTP – Recueil Des Tessères de Palmyre, 1955
• BS III – .mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit;word-wrap:break-word}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation:target{background-color:rgba(0,127,255,0.133)}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free.id-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited.id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration.id-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription.id-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg")right 0.1em center/12px no-repeat}body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background-size:contain;padding:0 1em 0 0}.mw-parser-output .cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:none;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;color:var(--color-error,#bf3c2c)}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{color:var(--color-error,#bf3c2c)}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#085;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}@media screen{.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{color:#18911f}}@media screen and (prefers-color-scheme:dark){html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{color:#18911f}}Dunant, Christiane (1971). Le sanctuaire de Baalshamin à Palmyre: Les inscriptions. Vol. 3. Institut Suisse.
• RSP – Michał Gawlikowski's Recueil d'inscriptions palmyréniennes provenant de fouilles syriennes et polonaises récentes à Palmyre, 1974
• PAT – Palmyrene Aramaic Texts, a modern concordance and synthesis of earlier publications. In the reference system used in Palmyrene Aramaic Texts, the ID numbers ("sigla") follow a priority order beginning with CIS

A selected concordance is shown below:

Palmyrene inscriptions covered a range of social and religious contexts:

• Funerary inscriptions, among the most common, typically appear on tomb façades, loculi (burial niches), or funerary reliefs and record the name and lineage of the deceased. Many are accompanied by Palmyrene funerary reliefs. The inscriptions often follow formulaic patterns identifying the individual, their father, and sometimes their tribe or profession.

• Temple and dedication inscriptions with dedications to gods (e.g. Bel, Baalshamin) or construction work in temples

• Honorific inscriptions commemorated individuals who contributed to the city’s civic or religious life.

• Tesserae are small inscribed tokens, understood to have served as admission tokens or ritual markers connected with temple banquets and religious festivals.

• From the Great Colonnade at Palmyra: CIS II 3932, PAT 0278, NE p.459 a5, XXXVII, RES 841, IIP 3 22

• From the Hypogeum of the Three Brothers: CIS II 4171-86, PAT 0523-0542, Tad 27, RES 1041

• Rome 1 - the first published Palmyrene inscription

• Rome 2 - the second published Palmyrene inscription

• Palmyra Tariff

• Louvre AO 2204, CIS II 4218

• Harvard Semitic Museum 1905.5.33

• Louvre AO2205, CIS II 4112

• Mark Lidzbarski's Handbuch der Nordsemitischen Epigraphik Table XXXIX

• Tombstone of Regina, from Hadrian's Wall, England

• Yale University Art Gallery, 1938.5314, with PAT sigla "Doura 28-32"

• Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, Inv. 1992-13

• Louvre, AO 19801, with PAT sigla "Syr ’49 p 36-40"

• British Museum, 102612, CIS II 4200

• Berlin

• Damascus

• Louvre AO1556, CIS II 4401

• Louvre AO2200, CIS II 4250

• Louvre AO2398, CIS II 4381

• Louvre AO4085, CIS II 4465

• Louvre AO4147, CIS II 4538, IIP 4 27o

About 1,200 of the inscriptions in PAT are known from museum collections. Many of the others are still in situ.

• Gruter, Jan (1616). Inscriptionum Romanarum Corpus Absolutissimum. Heidelberg.

• Spon, Jacob (1683). Recherches curieuses d'antiquité. Lyon.

• Spon, Jacob (1685). Miscellanea eruditae antiquitatis. Lyon.

• Halley, Edmond (1695). "Some Account of the Ancient State of the City of Palmyra, with Short Remarks upon the Inscriptions Found There". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 19: 160–175.

• Halifax, William (1695). "A Relation of a Voyage from Aleppo to Palmyra in Syria". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 19: 83–110.

• Pulleyn, Octavian (1697). "Part of a Letter Giving an Account of an Inscription Found in the Language of the Palmyreni". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 19: 537–539.

• Bernard, Edward; Smith, Thomas (1698). Inscriptiones Graecae Palmyrenorumque cum Scholiis et Annotationibus. Utrecht.

• Hyde, Thomas (1700). Historia Religionis Veterum Persarum. Oxford.

• Renaudot, Eusèbe (1736). "Éclaircissement sur les explications que les Anglois ont données de quelques inscriptions de Palmyre". Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. 2: 474–494.

• Wood, Robert; Dawkins, James (1753). The Ruins of Palmyra, Otherwise Tedmor, in the Desart. London.

• Swinton, John (1755). "An Explication of all the Inscriptions in the Palmyrene Language and Character Hitherto Publish'd". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 48: 690–756.

• Barthélemy, Jean-Jacques (1759). "Réflexions sur l'alphabet et sur la langue dont on se servoit autrefois à Palmyre (1754)". Histoire de l'Académie royale des inscriptions et belles-lettres (in French). 26 (Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (France) Auteur du): 577–597, pl. I-III.

• Barthélemy, Jean-Jacques (1736). "Réflexions sur quelques monuments Phéniciens, et sur les alphabets qui en résultent". Mémoires de littérature, tirés des registres de l'académie royale des inscriptions et belles-lettres. 30 (read 12 April 1758): 405–427.

• Barthélemy, Jean-Jacques (1768). "Explication d'un bas-relief égyptien et de l'inscription phénicienne qui l'accompagne". Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. 32: 725–738.

• Conder, C. R. (1890). "Relation of a Voyage to Tadmor in 1691". Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement: 273–303.

• Cumont, Franz (1928). "L'Autel palmyrénien du Musée du Capitole". Syria. 9: 101–109.

• de Vogüé, Eugène-Melchior (1868). Syrie centrale. Inscriptions sémitiques publiées avec traduction et commentaire par le Cte Melchior de Vogüé: Inscriptions arameennes (in French). J. Baudry.

• Cantineau, J. (1931). "Textes palmyreniens provenant de la fouille du Temple de Bêl". Syria. 12 (2). Institut Francais du Proche-Orient: 116–142. ISSN 0039-7946. JSTOR 4195577.

• Cantineau, Jean (1933). "Tadmorea". Syria. 14 (2). Institut Francais du Proche-Orient: 169–202. ISSN 0039-7946. JSTOR 4195739.

• Cantineau, Jean (1936). "Tadmorea (Suite)". Syria. 17 (3). Institut Francais du Proche-Orient: 267–282. ISSN 0039-7946. JSTOR 4195958.

• Cantineau, Jean (1938). "Tadmorea (Suite)". Syria. 19 (1). Institut Francais du Proche-Orient: 72–82. ISSN 0039-7946. JSTOR 4196116.

• Astengo, Gregorio (2016-09-20). "The Rediscovery of Palmyra and Its Dissemination in Philosophical Transactions". Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science. 70 (3): 209–230. doi:10.1098/rsnr.2015.0059. ISSN 0035-9149. PMC 4978726. PMID 31390424.

• Daniels, Peter T. (1988). "'Shewing of Hard Sentences and Dissolving of Doubts': The First Decipherment". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 108 (3). American Oriental Society: 419–436. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 603863.

• Hillers, Delbert R.; Cussini, Eleonora (1996). Palmyrene Aramaic Texts. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-5278-7.

• Hutton, Jeremy M. (2021-01-01). "Palmyrenica I: Notes and Addenda to the Published Resources". Maarav. 25 (1–2): 91–111. doi:10.1086/MAR202125107. ISSN 0149-5712.

• Lieu, Samuel N. C. (2017-09-07). "Imperialism and Language: Observations on Bilingual Inscriptions from Palmyra". Registers and Modes of Communication in the Ancient Near East. Abingdon, Oxon, UK; New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315206448-7. ISBN 978-1-315-20644-8.

• Pope, Maurice (1975). The Story of Archaeological Decipherment. New York: Scribner.

• Von Danckelman, Peter (2025-05-30). "Prosopographia Palmyrena". Digital Classics Online. Bd. 10: 55–76 Seiten. doi:10.11588/DCO.2024.10.103977.

• Yon, Jean-Baptiste (2013). "L' épigraphie Palmyrénienne depuis PAT, 1996-2011". Studia Palmyreńskie (in French). doi:10.11588/DIGLIT.26423.31.

• Yon, Jean-Baptiste (2024-01-23). "A Bilingual World?: Language and Epigraphy in Palmyra". The Oxford Handbook of Palmyra. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190858117.013.18. ISBN 978-0-19-085811-7.