Talk:Ahiram sarcophagus

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Dates?

The article says king Ahiram lived c. 1200 BC, but the caption near the photograph says c. 1000 BC?

- No other sources? That's weird doesn't the Bible mention a Hiram (shorten form of: Ahiram). "King of Tyre, and friendly contemporary of Kings David and Solomon in the 11th century B.C.E" - Insight on the scriptures volume one.

Questions about the sarcophagus

What is the sarcophagus made of? Marble, or what?

What were the circumstances of its discovery? Presumably it was hidden underground.

Etc.CountMacula (talk) 21:03, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Inscriptions" section inconsistent.

Under the "inscriptions" section, there is an image with some Phoenician drawn, presumably to show how the text was arranged on the actual artifact; then there is a table which has "text" in phonecian letters, and "transcription" (i.e. transliteration) in Roman letters, which uses the normal modern convention; then later there is an English translation. I don't understand Phoenician, so I can't speak to the accuracy of the translation, but I do know there's something wrong with the image and first table.

First of all, the Phonician text in the image looks nothing like the text in the table. Secondly, while the transliteration mostly matches the text in the table (I know what the correspondences should be), there are a few major discrepencies, where letters have been switched around or a word has been skipped. As I said, I don't understand Phoenician, and I also haven't looked at the original sources, so I don't whether the "text" or "transcription" is the accurate one when there are discrepencies (although I doubt a whole word would be invented, so presumably that word that's in the "text" but not the "trancription" is real). I also have no idea how the image related to the "text" in the table. DubleH (talk) 06:37, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

DubleH: The picture is indeed misleading: the real inscription is in two parts, a small one (line "1") and a longer one (line "2", starting at "w'l mlk"). In the picture, however, line "2" has been cut in two, and the first half was pasted to line "1" of the inscription, while the remaining part of line "2" is the lower line of the illustration. Perhaps the cutting and pasting should be undone?

The English translation as given here is odd too. Apparently it is a literal translation from the German wikipedia; the end of the text in particular is quite cryptic. Most of the actual Phoenician is not very difficult to understand (but the final part is obscure), so it would be better, I think, to replace this translation with a fresh translation directly from the original Phoenician (I could make an attempt), preferably in a third column of the text, so that it is clear to which part of the Phoenician text each part of the translation corresponds.Hans van Deukeren (talk) 16:17, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Dependance on one press release?

This article seems to be much too dependant on one German press release mentioned in the External links ("Press release on new deciphering and translation"): in fact no "new deciphering" is presented, the new translation sounds bizarre ("one should cancel his registration concerning the libation tube of the memorial sacrifice"), and claims like "recent re-edition of the Ahirom inscriptions and a some years later new reconstruction of a lacuna" are directly taken from the press release and naively presented as solid truths. Any scholar who divulges his finds by means of a press release should be distrusted extremely. In addition, the new discoveries mentioned in the press release, such as that Ahiram's sarcophagus was a reused one, are not new at all. I would advise to use more varied scholarly sources.Hans van Deukeren (talk) 21:27, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]