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Document Details : Title: The Genre of Bitnoam Inscription Author(s): AZIZE, Joseph Journal: Ancient Near Eastern Studies Volume: 42 Date: 2005 Pages: 318-333 DOI: 10.2143/ANES.42.0.2004457 Abstract : It is suggested that while the Bitnoam text belongs to the genre of the ‘Phoenician royal funerary inscription’, it extends that genre in three telling ways: first, it makes no reference to any afterlife; second, it directs no curses to potential desecrators who rob the sarcophagus or reuse it; third, it describes how sumptuously the lady is decked out. Together, these suggest that the deceased may have been indifferent to what might happen to her sarcophagus and even her corpse, after her burial, and was perhaps sceptical that there was any afterlife. This points to a perhaps surprising intellectual sophistication in pre-Hellenistic Byblos. |
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