RE: The Tel Dan Inscription
January 20, 2012 at 7:53 pm
(This post was last modified: January 20, 2012 at 7:55 pm by Minimalist.)
It is a damaged inscription which these writers suggest mimics that word which was described by Flinders-Petrie as "Israel." (The actual word, in Egyptian, is Ysirir or Isrir and one of the problems with it is that it appears no where else in the entire body of Egyptian inscriptions from the New Kingdom period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merneptah_Stele
The problem remains that even if this is a second reference to the word Isrir it still does not tell us what the Egyptians meant by this word. Petrie's guess that it meant "Israel" in the sense that we use the word today seems suspiciously like the arguments that were made for "habiru" or "apiru" meaning "Hebrew" because modern ears thought they sounded that way. They were not.
Other problems with the Merneptah stele aside, we still are no closer to knowing what the Egyptians meant by the word.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merneptah_Stele
Quote:The stele was discovered in 1896 by Flinders Petrie who located it in the first court of Merneptah's mortuary temple at Thebes.[2] It is now in the collection of the Egyptian Museum at Cairo, and a fragmentary copy of the stele was also found at Karnak.[3] Flinders Petrie called upon Wilhelm Spiegelberg, a German philologist in his archaeological team to translate the newly found massive granite stela. Towards the end of the text, Spiegelberg was puzzled by the mention of one symbol, that of a people or tribe whom Merenptah had victoriously smitten--"I.si.ri.ar?"[4] Petrie quickly suggested that it read: "Israel!"[4] Spiegelberg agreed that this translation must be correct. "Won't the reverends be pleased?" remarked Petrie.[4] At dinner that evening, Petrie who realized the importance of the find said:
"This stele will be better known in the world than anything else I have found."[4]
The problem remains that even if this is a second reference to the word Isrir it still does not tell us what the Egyptians meant by this word. Petrie's guess that it meant "Israel" in the sense that we use the word today seems suspiciously like the arguments that were made for "habiru" or "apiru" meaning "Hebrew" because modern ears thought they sounded that way. They were not.
Other problems with the Merneptah stele aside, we still are no closer to knowing what the Egyptians meant by the word.
