CIS I 0112

"Lines 1 and 2 - CIS sees פמיחו as פתיחו. After examining the squeeze of this text, the second letter looks more like a mem instead of a taw (see also Holmstedt et al., 2026, 257). The name ˁBDSKN means either “servant of the governor” or “servant of Sakkōn.” Sakkōn was a god worshipped in Phoenicia and West Phoenicia with a temple in Carthage (Krahmalkov 2000, 343). The name PMYḤW means “Pumi lives.” According to Benz (1972, 391-392) Pumi is an unidentified deity appearing in names from Cyprus and Carthage and as a deity in the Nora Inscription (KAI 48.8). If the word is PTYḤW like CIS 112 has, then it would mean “PT lives,” which could be the name of an obscure deity (Benz 1972, 396-397). The word דלחמה is, according to Krahmalkov (2000, 148), a word for Abu Simbel, which is near Nubia/Cush, just south of Aswan. Holmstedt et al., (2026, 257) reconstructs the second half of the line as על שד כש דל חמס, which translates to “went up to the territory of Kush with Aḥmose.” In order to read this, Holmstedt, as his drawings show, had to reconstruct שד כש, which according to the squeeze is impossible to do because the letters cannot be made out. He says he was working off of WSRP photos which could not be obtained. Furthermore, he translates חמס as the name Aḥmose. This is unlikely because, as CIS 111 shows, Aḥmose is spelled in both Egyptian and Phoenician with either an ayin (Egyptian) or an alef (Phoenician). Aḥmose needs that initial letter for the a-vowel that would not occur with just חמס. The location of כש is modern-day Sudan and was also known as Nubia. Lines 3 and 4 - The second word is taken by CIS to be a misspelling of the word בנ because the second letter is clearly a mem. This is possible because line seven does the same thing. Because the first letter is hard to read, it has been left untranslated, but it seems to have the X son of Y formula. According to Benz 1972, 298 the name גרהכל means “dweller of the palace/temple.” The word הכל does occur in Phoenician (Benz 1972, 302-303), but is much more common in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Akkadian. This could be a name indicating that this person worked in a temple. The name חלמ is unknown (Benz 1972, 310). It means “dream” in Aramaic and Hebrew, so perhaps the name means “dreamer” and may indicate some sort of diviner, especially if the son is named “dweller of the temple.” Holmstedt et al., (2026, 257) reads lines three and four as גרס כלבמ חלמ אש על שד כש דל חמס and translates this as “Crushed the dogs did two armies that went up to the territory of Kush with Aḥmose.” Along with this translation sounding unusual, it is more likely an X son of Y formula. The third letter appears to be a he on the squeeze, so גרס cannot be the word. כלבמ would explain the mem in line three, but reading חלֹמ does not work. This word does not refer to “army” in either Krahmalkov or DNSWI. Rather, DNSWI (1995, 375-376) says the meaning is “dream.” It is possible that Holmstedt is confusing חלמ with לחמ (“to fight”). The final word is unlikely to be Aḥmose as well (see Line 1 above). There is a difficulty in reading the last letter of דלחמס. It can either be a samek or a he. On the squeeze, the the third horizontal line crosses the vertical line just as a samek would. The other two horizontal lines do not cross the vertical line. The third horizontal line in the he in line three in גרהכל does not cross the vertical line. A small shadow can be seen behind the vertical line showing this. The third horizontal line crossing over the vertical line could be how this person wrote the letter samek. Additionally, the person who wrote line seven also has a letter where the third horizontal line crosses the vertical line, which could be a samek, in the same word דלחמס (the writer of line five also has this letter written this way in גרסכנ). The reading of it as a samek follows Krahmalkov (2000, 148). It should be noted, however, that if too much pressure is applied to the knife when carving the inscription, the third horizontal line could easily go past the vertical line. It does seem odd, though, that the same horizontal line would cross the vertical line while the other two horizontal lines do not with three different people. If this letter is supposed to be a he and read דלחמה, then the meaning would need to be amended as דלחמה being the word for Abu Simbel rather than דלחמס. Line 5 - It appears גרסכנ is the brother of the גרהכל because they have the same father named חלמ. The name גרסכנ is a combination of גר and סכנ, which means either “client of the governor” or, more likely because of the possible temple context of the father and brother, “client of Sakkōn.” Holmstedt et al., 2026, 258 reads this as גרס כלב דל חלמ אש על דל חמס שד כש which means “He crushed the dog with the (two armies) that went up with Aḥmose to the territory of Kush.” This does not work because of the more likely X son of Y formula, but also because the mem in כלבמ looks more like a nun and would fit the reading of בנ. Again, Holmstedt runs into the problems of חלמ vs. לחמ for “army” and Aḥmose being the unlikely reading. Furthermore, in the first דל, it is easy to see where he got this reading. He is seeing it as two separate letters written on top of each other. It is more likely to be a scribal mistake where the person wrote an initial dalet and then wrote over it with a nun. This is likely given the shadow on the horizontal line of the nun which indicates it being written over the dalet, plus the nun is using the same tail as the dalet. Lines 6 and 7 - The name KŠY is a gentilic for “Cushite” and functions here as a name, or even a nickname. The name ˁBDPˁM is a theophoric name meaning “servant of PˁM.” The god PˁM is unknown (Benz 1972, 393), and Krahmalkov (2000, 357) wonders if this is a misspelling of ˁBDDˁM. This translation differs from Holmstedt et al., (2026, 258-259). His translation of the two lines are “The Kushite was among those made to serve (as) a foot-soldier, who went up to the territory of Kush with Aḥmose.” It hinges on the meaning of עבדפעמ, which he says that instead of it being a theophoric name, it should be seen in light of a Greek graffiti from Abu Simbel from Anaxanor of Ialysos, which mentions an army marching with King Psammetichus. He then says, “the phrase bm ˁbdpˁm is a yuphal participle followed by an adverbial noun ‘foot, step,’ which seems to be extended like BH רגל to connote ‘foot-soldier’ (see 1 Sam 4:10).” This seems more complicated than it needs to be and also depends on the use of Aḥmose, which is unlikely with the spelling. This is more likely continuing the X son of Y formula with ˁBDPˁM being a theophoric name with the very common ˁBD attached to a god’s name. It is noteworthy that Holmstedt sees lines five, six, and seven (CIS 112 b2 and c1) as representing a single text. The texts are aligned nicely in three rows. However, these appear to be written by two different people. Lines five and six and seven have different letter shapes. For example, the ḥet in line seven with two diagonal middle lines differs from that in line six with three, though toward the end of line seven there is another one with three. The mem in line seven does not have the middle vertical line that appears in the mems in the middle and at the end of line five. Both inscriptions do have the ס with the third horizontal line going past the vertical line, but the writer of line two has that as well, so it must be a common way to write this letter. Finally, if this was written by one person, it is strange that the third line (line seven) extends so far past the other two lines instead of making a line eight underneath line seven to have four equal length lines." (Wheaton).