The spr s lh 'Tablet Scribe' at Phoenician Kition (CISI 86A14)

摘要

This study takes up the phrase rb sprm slh in the Phoenician text on the obverse of the wellknown ritual account discovered at Kition in Cyprus in 1879 (CIS I 86 A 14 KAI~5 37 A 14).~1 My contention is that the letters slh should not be read as the verb s-l-h "stretch out, give free reign to, let go, accompany, send away" (DNWSI 1136-41; Krahmalkov 2000:46162 s.v. SLH I),~2 as has been the practice since the reading was established in 1968. I maintain that the string slh comprises two words: the relative complementizer and the noun lh ` tablet.' The phrase sprm s lh does not concern a chief scribe who was somehow sent or commissioned, but a specific type of scribe who wrote on tablets, such as the stone tablet on which the Phoenician text under discussion appears.