The Old Aramaic Alphabet at Tell Halaf the Date of the "Altar" Inscription

Abstract

In 1931 Baron von Oppenheim, reporting on his excavation at Tell Halaf, wrote: "In der Kaparaschicht fanden wir ein kleines Kalksteinaltairchen mit einigen wenigen, leider nicht entzifferbaren altsemitischen Schriftzeichen."' No further stratigraphic detail has been released on this piece which, therefore, must be discussed apart from any exact archeological context. Meissner, from the character of the cuneiform signs, peculiarities of language, and the point of view expressed in the short cuneiform inscriptions of Kapara, feels that a date in the twelfth century B.c. is fitting for the Kapara stratum.2 Von Oppenheim insists that the date of the small finds of the stratum and the views of B. Landsberger with regard to the earliest possible presence of Aramaeans in Mesopotamia also support the twelfth century B.C. date.3 The twelfth-century date has been widely accepted4 but not without considerable opposition.5 The publication of the Kapara Aramaic inscription, long awaited, has finally appeared as the work of Johannes Friedrich.6 A hand copy of the inscription is given (Fig. 1) but, unfortunately, no photograph. Friedrich transliterates it as `rlt 1 "T [(x)x]by2 I r)"IT but, with re1 M. F. von Oppenheim, Der Tell Halaf (Leipzig, 1931), p. 65; cf. English translation by G. Wheeler, p. 70. The expanded French edition, which I understand is in preparation, is not available. 2 B. Meissner, apud von Oppenheim, op. cit., p. 266 (English ed., p. 316). S. Langdon, Oxford Magazine, June 15, 1933, p. 812, on the basis of the cuneiform signs, dated the Kapara inscriptions to the tenth century B.c. There can be no certainty in dating based on cuneiform script alone.