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A Syriac Seal Inscription
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2014
Extract
It is perhaps not without significance that an article on a Syriac theme should appear in this volume dedicated to Professor Sidney Smith, for it is recognized that his work has influenced many aspects of Semitic studies. This brief essay is therefore offered as a small tribute.
My colleague Dr. A. D. H. Bivar very kindly drew my attention to the Syriac legend on one of the Sasanian seals in the British Museum of which he is preparing a catalogue. This seal, B.M. 119393 (Plate IV, a), may be briefly described as follows:
red jasper, ellipsoid, 15 × 16 mm.; a bearded figure standing to right, wearing costume with skirt and holding a barrel-shaped object before with both hands; around a Syriac inscription.
The provenance of the seal is unknown.
On the grounds of its profile shape Dr. Bivar assigns the date of this seal to c. A.D. 400. An examination of the script does not argue against this view. In particular, the shape of the letter š, its head closed with a horizontal stroke, has not been found so far in lapidary texts earlier than the 5 th century.
The Syriac legend of the seal, reading anti-clockwise from the back of the head of the figure, may be deciphered:
For the first word ‘br provides no satisfactory meaning, ‘bd may be interpreted as “made by”, but a verb would be out of place here. We should therefore regard this part of the legend as a pr. n., ‘abed SRYK’.
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- Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1967
References
1 The seal is described by Horn, P., “Sasanidische Gemmen aus dem British Museum”, ZDMG xliv, 1890, 659, No. 56 (586) and Pl. Ia. Horn was unable to decipher the Syriac legendGoogle Scholar.
2 The points that distinguish Syriac d from r appear after the 3rd century. On this seal neither d nor r —if my decipherment is correct—has a point. But the practice among engravers seems to be irregular. The letters b, w, y and k on the seal all have features characteristic of early Syriac inscriptions—but these are retained fitfully as late as the 5th century.
3 See my article “Some Syriac Inscriptions of the 2nd–3rd Century A.D.”, BSOAS xvi, 1954, 31ffGoogle Scholar.
4 Cf. Littman, E., Semitic inscriptions (Publications of the Princeton University Archaeologcal Expeditions to Syria in 1904–05 and 1909. Division IV), 1914–1949, Section CGoogle Scholar.
5 See the discussion in Cantineau, J., Grammaire du palmyrénien épigraphique, 1935, 104ffGoogle Scholar.
6 Cantineau, , Inventaire des inscriptions de Palmyre v, 1931, Nos. 1, 3 and 5Google Scholar; ib iii, 1930, No. 9. See also Ingholt, H., etc., Receuil des Tessères de Palmyre, 1955Google Scholar, Nos. 178, 870f., 741f., where we have Š/ŚRYKW on tesserae, all, of course, undated, and the comments of A. Caquot in Ingholt, ib, 178.
7 An analysis may be found in Cantineau, , Grammaire du palmyrénien épigraphique, 41ff.Google Scholar; see also Jenni, E., Theologische Zeitschrift xxi, 1965, 378Google Scholar, and my forthcoming article in BSOAS xxx/2 (1967)Google Scholar.
8 The superfluous horizontal line below w is characteristic of the “ribbing” effect produced by our engraver; note the similar line under the initial' of this word and see p. 13 below.
9 The treatment in Palmyrene is similar; Cantineau, op.cit., 117.
10 It can scarcely be connected with iqîš on seals with Akkadian inscriptions. There the formula is “X… to Y… has presented (iqäš)”: see Frankfort, H., Cylinder Seals, 1939, 10ffGoogle Scholar.
11 Plate IV, d. This seal may be described: Agate, dome-shaped, 15 × 15 mm.; “device” with crescent above asymmetrical element below which is downturned Pahlavi letter kaf; around a Syriac inscription. See Horn, op.cit., 660, No. 60 (610), Pl. Ia. On these “devices” see Jänichen, H., Bildzeichen der königlichen Hoheit bei den iranischen Völkern, 1956Google Scholar, and Bivar, A. D. H., “Details and ‘Devices’ from the Sassanian Sculptures”, Oriental Art v, 1959, 11ffGoogle Scholar. (I owe these references to Dr. Bivar.)
12 The former corresponds to Arabic qs, the letter to Arabic qš.
13 The Hebrew stem yšš (2Chr. 36:17, and Job 15:10, 29:8, 32:6), with the same meaning as Aramaic qšš, is possibly cognate.
14 BT Keth. 95b; see the citations in Levy, J., Neubebräisches und chaldäisches Wörterbuch …, 1883, s.v.Google Scholar
15 The form qašša with adjectival force is rare according to Payne-Smith, R., Thesaurus syriacus, 1868–1927, s.v.Google Scholar; but it is found in inscriptions, Pognon, H., Inscriptions sémitiques de la Syrie, de la Mésopotamie et de la région de Mossoul, 1907, 189f.Google Scholar, and Littman, , Semitic Inscriptions (Part IV of the Publications of an American Expedition to Syria in 1899–1900), 1904, 13ff., No. 4Google Scholar.
16 Payne-Smith, op. cit., s.v.
17 Jud. 8:16 (Hex.) and Luke 7:3.
18 See p. 12 below.
19 Neh. 7:65, 70, Ps. 105:22.
20 Jud. 21:16 (Hex.).
21 Acts 18:19.
22 Acts 4:5, 8, cf. V.6; Matt. 16:21, 21:23, 26:3, 47. etc.
23 See Payne-Smith, op. cit., s.v. For its use in Syriac inscriptions see, for example, Pognon, op. cit., 55, 63f., 70 and frequently, and Littmann, Semitic inscriptions (Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904–05 and 1909. Division IV), Section B, 18, No. 18. It appears in transcription into Greek, Le Bas, Ph. and Waddington, W. H., Inscriptions grecques et latines recueillies en Grèce et en Asie Mineure, 1870, No. 2171Google Scholar.
24 Maricq, A., Classica et Orientalia, ed. Pirenne, J., 1965, 141ffGoogle Scholar.
25 The following letters, nḥ', may form a theophorous name with the preceding 
, but their close similarity to the name of the deity NḤY which appears in the same line makes them suspect.
26 The most recent analysis is in Maricq-Pirenne, op. cit., 134ff., 141ff.
27 So already suggested in Maricq-Pirenne, op. cit., 143 foot.
28 See my article, “The Sabian Mysteries”, in Bacon, E. (ed.), Vanished Civilisations, 1963, 213, 216fGoogle Scholar. We should perhaps detect another mention of BDR —this time in an inscription recently published from Sa'adiya near Hatra. This text, dated April 125, records the dedication of “a garden and altar of Marilaha of Qarqabeš who resides in the ḥṭṭ”, and continues (in line 5) d‘bd zn’ 
dḥzy' bḥlm'. (It seems preferable to read bḥlm' rather than wḥim' as Teixidor, J., Syria xli, 1964, 273ff.Google Scholar) See Safar, Fuad, Sumer xvii, 1961, 9ffGoogle Scholar. (Arabic). Caquot, , Syria xl, 1963, 1ff.Google Scholar, largely followed by Teixidor, ib., translates, “… made by ZN’ son of DḤNY instructor(?) of those who see dreams”. But it is doubtful whether the word try', here translated (as by Fuad Safar) as “instructor” is in fact cognate with Syriac tr”. It is written between the lines and above the second ‘bd of the text (line 6). It may be interpreted as a marginal note with the meaning of “two”, to remind the lapicide that the text records two acts of dedication— one to Marilaha of Qarqabeš, the other (from line 6) to Nergol. We should then perhaps translate line 5, ’made by ZN' the BDR (or, this BDR) who attends (ḥny) to those who see (visions) in dreams.” For BDR in a dedication to a deity Marilaha we have an exact parallel in the inscription of Sumatar Harabesi (BSOAS xvi, 1954, 26ff.Google Scholar). For the stem ḥny in the context of the supernatural cf. the famous Jewish Ḥoni (Onias) the me'aggel. Or have we in the Sa'adiya text confusion between BDR ḤNY and BDR dNḤY of the Serrin text?
29 Répertoire d'épigraphie sémitique 1058, cf. 1059.
30 Clermont-Ganneau, C., “Le titre palmyrénien de qachich, ‘sénateur’”, Recueil d'archéologie orientale iii, 1900, 170Google Scholar; see also Lidzbarski, M., “Der QaššΆša di dairâ und die Tracht der Palmyrener”, Ephemeris für semitische Epigraphik i, 1902, 87ffGoogle Scholar. Clermont-Ganneau had earlier (ib., ii, 1898, 373n.) proposed the rendering of qaššîša as “uncle”, but withdrew this view after the comment of Lidzbarski, , Handbuch der nordsemitischen Epigraphik …, 1898, 365, 481 n.8Google Scholar, who interprets the term as “(Bezirks)ältester”.
31 P. 8 above.
32 Cantineau, op. cit., 154f.
33 Payne-Smith, Thesaurus, s.v. In Early South Arabian dyr appears to have a local significance of “(Beduin) encampment”.
34 How little is known about temple personnel at Palmyra is evident from Février, J., La religfon des Palmyréniens, 1931, 167–72Google Scholar.
35 Bivar, A. D. H. and Shaked, S., “The inscriptions at Shīmbār”, BSOAS xxvii, 1964, 265ff., esp. 274–6Google Scholar.
36 P. 12 below.
37 Above p. 6.
38 Torrey, C. C., in Kraeling, C. H., The Synagogue (The Excavations at Dura-Europos, 8), 1956, 263, Tile AGoogle Scholar; cf. Tile C.
39 Ib., 277, Inscription No. 23.
40 But scarcely the same as that of an Elder equivalent to a phylarch, as suggested by Torrey; see the comments that follow in the present article.
41 Ezra 5:9, cf. v. 9, 6: 7f., 14.
42 BT Shab. 109b foot.
43 Levy, op. cit., s.v., basing his opinion on the passage cited from BT Shab.
44 BT Baba Bathra 110a.
45 See, for example, Christensen, A., L'Iran sous Its Sassanides, 1936, 261Google Scholar.
46 Christensen, op. cit., 328. On the procedure in Byzantine Mexopotamia, see C. E. Sachau, Syrisch-Römisches Rechtsbuch …, 1880, and id., Syrische Richtsbücher, 1910.
47 This argument makes improbable the suggestion that w in the seal-inscription 'bw qš is a copula—that is, that the words are to be read 'b wqš.
48 P. II above.
49 Μεναὴ πατὸς πρεσ, Frey, J. B., Corpus inscriptionum judaicarum ii, 1952, 207, No. 1137Google Scholar. Frey translates, “(Tomb) of Menahem, father, pres(byter)”. and elsewhere points out that members of the Sanhedrin and of Senates and sons of distinguished families outside Jerusalem were called “presbyters”, while the term, “father” of, for example, the synagogue, was in use at Rome in the 4th century; op. cit. i, 1936, lxxxvi, xcv, xcvi. Nevertheless, the Menahem buried at Beth She'arim could have been “father of the pres(bytery)”, from the wording of the Greek inscription.
50 In particular, 'ab bet dîn, President of the Great Sanhedrin.
51 See Sznycer, M., “Les inscriptions araméennes de Tang-i Butan”, Journal asiatique, 1965, 1ffGoogle Scholar.
52 Bivar and Shaked themselves reject the suggestion that b'šy is connected with Old Persian baj, “tribute”, and the following bh a reduced form of the divine name Bel. Nor, as Sznycer observes, is the proposal to regard 'šybb as a vulgar Aramaic dialectal form of šebûcata more successful; the basis for the hypothesis rests mainly on one passage in the Babylonian Talmud which is itself obscure. Sznycer's view that b'šybh is composed of the prep. b, “in”, followed by a place-name is hardly more convincing. In the first place, the order of words gives undue prominence to this somewhat banal record of presence at a certain place. We would rather expect, “'WKY gšyš' son of ṢWL who was at …”, “ŠRKW son of ŠMWM who was at …” More important, these fairly elaborate reliefs would scarcely have been erected except in commemoration of a ceremony, probably a religious ceremony. It is reasonable to expect to find a mention of the ceremony or its implications in the accompanying texts.
53 See Payne-Smith, Thesaurus, s.v.
54 P. 10 above. The form šybh at Shimbar represents more closely the stem šyb than does śbyh at Dura. We may have here the transposition of the semi-consonant or the reflection of local pronunciation.
55 Especially in the Jerusalem Talmud; see M. Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud …, s.v.
56 Bivar and Shaked, op. cit., 268ff. and Plate I. Group 2 of the reliefs has two texts in addition to that recording the installation of the b'šybh. One gives the name of the person who “prepared” the reliefs, the other the name of a person entitled ṣṭwr' Zy bl'rw. Ṣṭar' may perhaps be related to Jewish Aramaic sanṣera, sanṣôra, “guardian”, with elision of n; for the substitution of ṣ for s under the influence of a following ṭ, see, for Syriac, my forthcoming article in BSOAS xxx/2 (1967)Google Scholar. Bl'rw can scarcely be the Semitic “altar of Bel”, in view of the non-Semitic order of the words (Bivar and Shaked, op. cit., 276), and Sznycer's “in L'RW” does not commend itself (see n. 52 above). We may tentatively accept the hypothesis that 'rw here is a by-form of 'ry (cf. Sznycer, op. cit., 6), and that the phase at Shimbar, ṣṭwr' Zy bl'rw means “guardian of Bel-lion”. Bel may well have been worshipped in this area at this time, and was a counterpart of Zeus. For the association with a lion deity, see p. 14f. below. There is evidence, though somewhat scanty, that Bel himself, perhaps through a natural syncretism, assumed lions as his symbol. A seal from the Lebanon carrying in Aramaic the pr. n. BL'TN, “Bel has given”, shows a figure seizing two lions—perhaps that of the deity Bel; Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 1883, 16Google Scholar. See n. 65 on Daniel with the attributes of Bel. For the integration of Bel in an Iranian milieu see the inscription of Arabissus, Lidzbarski, , Epbemeris …, i, (1900–1902), 59–74, 321–6Google Scholar. The heroic figure holding up two lions, which is a well-known subject in Achaemenid glyptic, (Schmidt, E. F., Persepolis, 1953, ii, 7Google Scholar), may represent a deity rather than a monarch. (I owe these references to Dr. Bivar).
57 P. 7, note 8 above.
58 The costume of Malku the qaššîša in the Palmyrene relief, p. 9 above, is not, of course, that of the deity but that of Malku; it is therefore the dress of a notable of Palmyra, not that of the personage on our seal.
59 Pognon, op. cit., 56ff., No. 20; Littmann, op. cit., 42ff., No. 52.
60 The first letter of the pr. n. 'b' was omitted by Pognon, but restored by Littmann. It is, however, small and may have been added by a later hand. It would be hazardous to seek in Kafr Nabu qšyš' (') b' a reflection of the 'bw qš of our seal or of Shimbar gšyš' zy b'šybh; p. 10 above.
61 Chapot, V, “Antiquités de la Syrie du nord”, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique xxvi, 1902, 181ff.Google Scholar, reports that in the region of Kafr Nabu is a village called Kimmar; the name recalls Aramaic kmr, “priest”.
62 Pognon, op. cit., 56 n.2. The text is published by Chapot, loc. cit.
63 Ingholt, H., Parthian Sculptures from Matra (Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, xii), 1954, 25 ffGoogle Scholar For a different view see Caquot, , Syria xxxii, 1955, 59Google Scholar. See also Pirenne, , Comptes rendus du GLECS vii, 1957, 112Google Scholar.
64 Ingholt, op. cit., 18; For Atargatis with lions perhaps cf. the figure from Dorylaeum in Anatolia, Koerte, A, Mittheilungen des Kaiserlich deutschen arch. Instituts, Athenische Abtheilung, xx (1895), 1Google Scholar.
65 Plate IV, b. The seal may be described, Garnet var. almandine, disc-shaped bezel; figure with raised hands, between two lions which do obeisance (?) with heads downwards. The theme with the lions is shown more clearly in a seal in the Hermitage published in Borisov, A. Y. and Lukonin, V. G., Sasanidskie gemmui (1963), No. 189Google Scholar; see Plate IV, c. Exactly the same motif is shown in the representation of the prophet Daniel in the reliefs of the tenth-century Armenian Church of the Holy Cross at Aght'amar; Der Nersessian, S., Aght'amar (1963), 19Google Scholar and fig. 49. Here “the lions, standing on their front legs and with their bodies thrust vertically upward, lick Daniel's feet”. Daniel has evidently assumed the attributes of Bel, perhaps under the influence of the apocryphal Bel and the Dragon (as suggested by Der Nersessian, loc. cit.), perhaps as an interpretation of the Biblical “Daniel whose name was Belteshazzar” (Dan. 2: 26, 4: 8, etc.). Daniel appears between two lions also in an illustrated Arabic Ms. of the Coptic Church ascribed to the eleventh century; Baumstark, A., “Beiträge zur Buchmalerei des christlichen Orients …”, Orlens Christianus 3 Ser., ix (xxxi) (1934), 102Google Scholar.