Late Punic Epigraphy : An Introduction to the Study of Neo-Punic and Latino-Punic Inscriptions

Karel Jongeling and Robert Kerr present a selection of those late Punic texts (i.e. post-dating the destruction of Carthage in 146BC) in both neo-Punic and Latin script which are relatively easy to understand, making them accessible to non-experts in the field of Northwest Semitic epigraphy. The brief but thorough commentary provided for each text explains the readings, the idiosyncrasies of later Punic and the underlying scribal conventions. In some cases, the authors give new readings and dispense with the old ones. On the one hand, the present authors intend to pick up where Gibson's Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions left off, on the other to broaden the selection offered by Donner and Röllig in Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften, whilst at the same time also reflecting the results of research carried out during the past decades. The work itself is intended for classroom use, ideally in the second term of an introductory course on North-West Semitic epigraphy, although it may also of course be used for private study. The Neo-Punic texts are given in Latin transcription, whilst the separate Neo-Punic and Latino-Punic glossaries contain both common and proper nouns together for ease of consultation. We hope that this book will be of interest not only to specialists in the field, but also for others intersted in North-West Semitic, namely philologists, linguists and theologians.