Punic was a variety of Phoenician spoken in North Africa btw 8th C BC & 6th C AD. It’s attested mainly in inscriptions most of which are repetitive, giving limited access to the language. In this thread we can go over one of these short inscriptions from Carthage together. 1/9

I don’t know the date of this stele bc I took the picture years ago without the museum information, but it is at the Museum of Carthage in Tunisia. The script and spelling point to 2nd or 1st C BC, but it’s hard to know for sure. 2/9

To make the reading easier, I divided the inscription in 3 parts, writing over the letters with 3 colors, and separating words with light green dotted lines, so you can follow along (shoutout to @protosemite and his amazing cuneiform threads for this idea). 3/9

Let’s start with the blue section: Like any votive stele of the area, it starts w/ the dedication (of a sacrifice, presumably) to Tanit and Baʿl: l-rbt l-tnt pn bʿl w-l-ʾdn l-bʿl ḥmn ʾš ndr “to the Lady to Tanit the face of Baʿl and to the Lord to Baʿl Ḥamon which vowed.” 4/9

Tanit and Baʿl Ḥamon are the most important gods in the Carthaginian Pantheon: Here’s Baʿl Ḥamon on his throne and here’s Tanit represented with a lion head. Both statues (1st C BC) were found in Bir Bouregba (in the Thinissut sanctuary) and displayed in the Bardo Museum. 5/9

The red sequence is the name of the person dedicating the stele & subject of the verb ndr "vowed": šfṭ bn ḥnbʿl bn ḥnʾ bn ʿbdʾšmn. This person’s father’s name is Hannibal (𐤇𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋), arguably the most famous Punic name, meaning “the grace of Baʿl” or “Baʿl is gracious”. 6/9

The great grandfather also has a typical Phoenician/Punic name: Arabic speakers will recognize the ʿabd- part, and ʾEšmun was a Phoenican god, so “servant of Ešmun.” Finally the two green words are: nšmʾ qlʾ “May his voice be heard,” in reference to his wishes to the gods. 7/9

nšmʾ is written with an aleph 𐤀 but we know that the verb “hear” in Semitic is šmʿ, w/ ʿayn 𐤏. In fact, we find šmʿ in other Punic texts, but speakers start confusing the pharyngeal and glottal consonants in later stages of the language, leading to spellings like this one. 8/9

Since I don’t have the details of this stele, I don’t know if it’s been published. If anybody knows more, please tell me. I just wanted to share a piece of an ancient culture of Tunisia with a non-stolen artifact that is still where it was found! 9/9