Meroitic language is one of the most controversial ancient languages but one of the few having advanced writing systems. Some classify it Asian, European, non-African, Semitic, or 'unclassified'. This paper contends Meroe, similar to their Cushitic friends, are left victims of preconceived ideas based on an entirely argument from silence, an hegemonic epistemology that elevates a single perspective and silences other(s). This paper, thus, comparatively analyzes Meroitic and Old Nubian lexical and grammatical items with corresponding Oromo, a Cushitic family which, many classical and contemporary philologists/linguists argue derives from a unique vocabulary possibly the Ancient language of the Nile Valley and/or Horn of Africa. Meroitic and Old Nubian lexical, grammatical and epigraphic data were collected from secondary sources by Meroitic researchers. Oromo corpora are obtained both from classical and modern descriptions and native-speakers. Results indicate Oromo lexemes show significant level of cognates with not only Meroitic and Old Nubian, but also with the Ancient Egyptian to their northern part.

Presentation of the discovery of a Sabaean presence on the Somali coast. It results from the illegal excavation of an archaeological site in Somalia, a temple for which no
parallel is attested in the region. There, monumental Sabaic inscriptions were unearthed, their photographs were posted on the Web and simultaneously handed down to Christian Robin and Khaldun Nuʿmān in 2019-20. Since then, we have had the opportunity to present this discovery in order to prevent the illegal trafficking of these artefacts.

A lot has been said and written about the so-called Ethiopic civilization said to have been built by unspecified white South Arabians into Black Africa, chiefly the Horn, in the 3 rd century Christian era. While such colonial mentality has gradually ebbed away in this (pot-)modern era, its vestige is yet thriving in Ethiosemitic circles. Scholars have hardly subjected this narrative to critical analysis. Only Ayele Bekerie has significantly destabilized this century-old phantasmagorical history. He explicated that it was but an hegemonic epistemology imposed upon African Ethiopians by few Indo-Semitic external paradigm that, in turn, continued to miseducate Abyssinian historians originating out of monastic education. Yet, Bekerie himself falls short of a paradigm-shifter role, since he, among other fallacies, could not make a break with the unexplained Ge'ez or Ethiopic speaking 'people'. This paper critically and multidisciplinarily analyzed both Bekerie's skeptic and Indo-Semitists' de-Africanizing discourses in the name of 'Ethiopic'. It showed that 'Ethiopic' was a colonial era conspiracy fabricated by means of dogmatic translation/transliteration and/or systematically distorted re-construction with the intention to misappropriate the autochthonous peoples' social epistemological texts, linguistic or non-linguistic, and ultimately left them physically, nationally and ideologically ever divided and 'historically' disoriented. This not only disrupted their civilization but also pulled them back to pre-classical times of 'nation-building'. This conspiracy is also partly responsible for unending tendencies of separationism, ethnocentrism, fundamentalism, and theocracticalautocratic-militarist totalitarian states and, consequently, unending and equal share of impecuniousness. This paper explicates how and why Ethiopic has neither been engineered by a social history of their own (Ethiosemites or Abyssinians) nor of by their South Arabic 'ancestors'. It also shades lights on how this miseducation is significant area of further critical inquiry for future young researchers on Ethiopian and Horn of African history from postcolonial, open-mind, deconstructivist and reconciliatory and peacebuilding perspective.

Much has been said concerning the broad outlines of the sequence of rulers and events in the 2nd century AD. However, the chronology remains incomplete: the fact that a Ḥimyarite king and a Sabaean king bore the same title at the same time — that is, king of Sabaʾ and dhū-
Raydān — has been a source of confusion; the fact that the succession was rarely dynastic but rather effected by co-option/adoption among the ruling families of the different tribes also complicates any chronological reconstruction; finally, some chronological gaps are still waiting for new epigraphic material to be filled. In this paper, the recent discovery of three new Sabaic inscriptions sheds new light on three grey areas of this century: 1) the beginning of the reign of the Sabaean king Wahabʾīl Yaḥūz; 2) the date of the reign of the Sabaean king Rabbshamsum Nimrān; and 3) the moment when the Ḥimyarite king Dhamarʿalī Yuhabirr took control of the Sabaean territory.

Depuis sa découverte en 1972, l'inscription de la bouteille de Tell Siran a fasciné les chercheurs-aussi bien les épigraphistes que les philologues. A la suite de l'editio princeps, la plupart des spécialistes ont considéré l'inscription comme une dédicade liée à des travaux faits par le roi ammonite Amminadab II. Toutefois, une autre analyse s'est fait jour, selon laquelle l'inscription est une sorte de poème attribué au roi. Près d'un demi-siècle après la découverte initiale, aucun consensus portant sur l'interprétation de l'inscription n'émerge de la quantité d'articles qui lui ont été dédiés. Mais comme cet article tente de le montrer, toutes les propositions philologiques avancées durant les dernières décennies n'ont pas le même degré de probabilité, et l'interprétation dédicatoire demeure la plus probable.

Aula Orientalis 33/2 (2015) 271-286. Final Proof.
This article presents the editio princeps of a Mandaic lamella from the Martin Schøyen collection. In the accompanying commentary, several Mandaic lexemes are discussed: abulia ‘fissures’, audana ‘desolated place’ and ʿbdunia ‘Abaddons’, gusparta ‘rooster’s comb’, d-p-n ‘to strike’, huṣa ‘palm frond’ (for later Manaic hukṣa), ṭasa ‘lamella, metal strip’, y-ṭ-b ‘burnish’, mitnia ‘loins’, m-r-s ‘to crush’, n-p-a ‘to shatter’ (< Aramaic n-p-ʕ), ʿumta ‘oath’, qmaha ‘amulet’, ragama ‘smiting’, šdqa ‘paralysis’, šuliata (pl. form) ‘afterbirths’ and šlutina ‘bat’. It also discusses the shift of *ʿu > i before a and orthographic interchanges of z and d.

In Near Eastern texts, mention is made of a goddess ‘ttrt ḫr/‘štrt ḥr which is sometimes rendered as the “Hurrian Astarte.” Until now, the second element * ḫr* has not been satisfactorily explained. In this article, a new etymology of the latter word is proffered
and this manifestation of the goddess Astarte is then associated with  Ἀφροδίτης λιµνησία “Aphrodite of the salt marshes.” It would then seem that this avatar of this Greek maritime goddess was borrowed from the Semitic world.

In this essay, I explore the literary background of 2 Sam 8:1b-14. The Old Sabaic royal summary inscription RES 3945/3946 exhibits significant structural and compositional parallels to the summary account of David's achievements. I argue that the quantity and quality of such similarities firmly locates the writing practices underlying the literary history of 2 Sam 8:1b-14 within a scribal tradition of narrating royal accomplishments shared in Israel and Ancient South Arabia. Based on this historical approximation, it is possible to revisit the problem of the passage's literary shape and position within the book of Samuel.

1 Non essendoci una raccolta definitiva e unanimemente accettata delle iscrizioni ebraiche antiche si adottano qui le seguenti abbreviazioni (sciolte nella Bibliografia finale): AHI, HAE, HI, HAILI, HCIBP. Concordanza per l'iscrizione AHI 8.015: HAE Kagr (9):6 = HI KAjr 14 = HAILI, p. 240 = HCIBP, pp. 322-324 = Meshel 1978 D2. 2 Zevit 2001, 373, nota n. 45: "This fragile inscription crumbled when touched and was immediately treated for preservation". 3 Meshel 1976, 122.

Keywords:
Epigraphy. Phoenicians. Punics. Iberian Peninsula. West Mediterranean.

Abstract:
This article reviews Phoenician and Punic inscriptions found in and around the Iberian Peninsula, which have been discovered or published in recent years (from 2009 year of the 10th International Congress of Palaeohispanic Cultures and Languages held in Lisbon until 2012 year of the 11th Congress held in Valencia). The text presents, contextualizes and analyses each new document and briefly discusses its epigraphic and historical interest.

Palabras clave:
Epigrafía. Fenicios. Púnicos. Península Ibérica. Medi- terráneo Occidental.

Resumen:
El siguiente trabajo pretende recoger los documentos epigrá- ficos fenicios y púnicos procedentes de la Península Ibérica y sus aledaños que han sido descubiertos o publicados en los últimos años. Recopilamos aquellos de los que hemos podido tener conocimiento (dentro de los proyec- tos de catalogación, estudio y edición de epígrafes fenicios que venimos desarrollando) desde la celebración del anterior congreso paleohispanístico, el X Colóquio internacional sobre Línguas e Culturas Paleohispânicas cele- brado en Lisboa en Febrero del 2009. Se presenta y contextualiza sintética- mente cada nuevo documento, según la información publicada o autorizada a publicarse, analizando brevemente su interés e implicaciones.

The two stelae published here entered the collection of the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem decades ago. 1 Although their exact provenance is unknown, the fact that they belong to a well-known kind of artifacts enables us to supply significant information about them. Undoubtedly, the stelae belong to the massive corpus of more than six thousand epigraphic stelae 2 deposited over vessels containing the ashes and the burned bones of babies in the burial fieldconventionally named "Tophet"dedicated to this specific purpose in Carthage, or another Punic "Tophet." 3 The Carthaginian Tophet was founded by the end of the 9 th century BCE, but only by the end of the 7 th century BCE stone markers began to be placed over the burial jars. Initially, the markers were very simple and anepigraphic, but later developed into more and more elaborated stelae over the centuries, until the use of the stelae ceased with the destruction of the city in 146 BCE. From the 6 th century BCE onwards, inscriptions were usually engraved on the stelae commemorating the burial. 4 1 I wish to thank the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem for their permission to publish the stelae, and especially to the curator Dr. Yigal Bloch for his kind help. 2 The anepigraphic stelae number about four thousand. 3 On the phenomenon and its research, see Vainstub 2010. 4 Vainstub 2010, pp. 140-142. Bible Lands e-Review 2018/S1 2 The research on the development of the Carthaginian stelae faces two major difficulties: 5 the fact that most of them were found in the 19 th and the early 20 th century excavations, conducted without satisfactory stratigraphic methodology, and the successive removal of most of the stelae from their original context to museums and private collections. Still, significant progress in reconstructing the process of the development of the stelae and dating its different stages has been made starting with the middle of the past century by researchers like Hours-Miedan, 6 and especially with the publication of the extensive study by Bisi. 7 The conclusions of Bisi were much revised, and criticized to a considerable extent, by Picard 8 who arranged a detailed comparison with the Hellenistic motifs that influenced the Carthaginian stelae. 9 Picardʼs views were widely accepted and developed, principally by Bénichou-Safar 10 who performed comprehensive comparative research on the stratigraphic data of all the archaeological excavations in Carthage and reached important conclusions on the gradual development of the 5 On the research see Tore 1995 with rich bibliography, especially pp. 475-476, 480-485.

Dans cet article, nous examinons la phrase finale trouvée dans des dédicaces puniques k šmc qlɔ brkɔ, habituellement traduite « parce qu’il a entendu sa voix, il l’a béni » selon que les verbes expriment l’aspect ou qu’ils expriment la modalité.

Archaeological and epigraphic discussion of the Proto-Canaanite Ahitub insciption on a wooden utensil from Kahun (Egypt). Both a Middel Bronze Second Intermediate and an Bronze Age 16th Dynasty date are possible. In de first case the name is probably Ahitabu in de second case ahi-'asabu or something similar.

A new neopunic inscription from Wadi Freshiha (Libya) has been recognized as epigraphical evidence of a sanctuary dedicated to the Carthaginian goddess Tanit and to the Greek Kore/ Persephone. Discordant interpretations will be presented moving from linguistic and paleographic observations.

A new West Semitic inscription from Khirbet Qeiyafa is presented. It was incised in Canaanite alphabetic script on a pottery storage jar before firing. Radiometric dating of the relevant layer has yielded a date of ca. 1020–980 b.c.e. The last few years have seen the publication of several new Semitic alphabetic inscriptions dated to the late 11th–10th centuries b.c.e. and originating at controlled excavations in Israel (Khirbet Qeiyafa, Beth Shemesh, Tell eṣ-Ṣâfi, and Jerusalem). The new inscription is an important addition to this corpus.

Punic stelae found in Carthage or in various north african sites are preserved in italian museums and private collections. Data obtained from Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum and information given by archival sources will be collected in order to reconstruct a picture of political and cultural relationships among Italy, France and Tunis in the
second half of the nineteenth century.