Syene 11-2-73-2/2 (Moore)

Update: In the original publication personally rejected reading ˁAqab-(ˀ)El. Now, however, I consider it an equal possibility, particularly since the Akkadian attestations so far only appear with -īl (BM 61002 and BM 33945) and this label appears to have been written in the Phoenician script, in which intervocalic mater lectionis need not be used. Compare, also, the contemporary Aramaic example in DUBSAR 31 no. 3 (https://deaps.osu.edu/text_objects/15064); see also ProsoBab (Moore 2025-11-13). Phoenician, based on the paleographic form of ק. The ב is Phoenician/Aramaic, but see 14-02-112-05/? for a similar letter shape. The name is based on the descriptor–DN pattern. Based on the similarly structured form in Akkadian, which spells the root with a single rather than a doubled radical and two a-class vowels, it seems best to vocalize the name as ˁᵃqab-Bēl, following the verb–DN name pattern rather than the noun/substantive–DN pattern. This interpretation is also supported by Zadok, Ran (“Yamu-iziri the summoner of Yahūdu and Aramaic linguistic interference,” N.A.B.U. 2015), who proposes a model in which the first element describes the person. Most often in Phoenician of this period one finds ˁAbd-DN as the paradigmatic model. Benz found no attestation of the element ˁqb in his collection of Phoenician and Punic names, and the word is sparsely attested in these languages. It is more at home in the Syrian–Mesopotamian sphere, where Akkadian parallels exist. Kornfeld notes ˀlˁqb (p. 41), and various ˁqb- forms are known in Aramaic (Schwiderski, p. 667). At Syene (14-02-43-01/01) is found šhrˁqb (see that text for further discussion). The spelling Bēl rather than Baˁal is indicative, though not determinative, of a Syrian–Mesopotamian rather than an (Eastern) Mediterranean provenance. See Benz, p. 287, and for a possible example from Elephantine in Phoenician script, see Röllig, no. 15. A similar name is attested in Late Babylonian: a-qa-bi-dinger (Tallqvist, Neobabylonisches, p. 10) (Moore).