Artifact: Basalt statue
Provenience: Tell Fekherye
Period: Neo-Assyrian Current location: Text genre, language: Akkadian, Aramaic

Description: This basalt statue, discovered at Tell Fekherye, stands at about 2 meters tall, including the base, and depicts a standing figure wearing a tunic. Along the skirt of the tunic are two inscriptions, one in Assyrian cuneiform that spans 38 lines of text, and one in an Aramaic dialect that spans 23 lines. The Akkadian inscription appears on the front of the skirt, suggesting its relative importance, while the Aramaic appears on the back; however, the text is most likely based on an Aramaic prototype (Greenfield and Shaffer 1982: 109). The statue is dated to the 9th century BCE based on art historical grounds (Assaf 1981) and on the name of the statue's donor (line 12: Adad-id'i), identified with an eponym of 866 BC (Assaf et al 1982: 103f.). The bilingual inscription on the statue raises questions and provides an important clue as to the extent of interaction between Aramaic and Akkadian in the early Neo-Assyrian period. (Moudhy al-Rashid, University of Oxford)

Editions: Abou-Assaf, A., P. Bordreuil, and A. R. Millard 1982: La Statue de Tell Fekherye et son inscription bilingue assyro-araméenne (Paris: Editions Recherche sur les civilisations), 13-37; Millard A. R. and P. Bordreuil 1982: 'A Statue from Syria with Assyrian and Aramaic Inscriptions', The Biblical Archaeologist 45:3, 135-141

Bibliography: Abou-Assaf, A. 1981: MDOG 113, 3ff.; Abou-Assaf, A., P. Bordreuil, and A. R. Millard 1982: La Statue de Tell Fekherye et son inscription bilingue assyro-araméenne (Paris: Editions Recherche sur les civilisations); Greenfield, J. C. and A. Shaffer 1982: 'Notes on the Akkadian-Aramaic Bilingual Statue from Tell Fekherye', Iraq 45:1, 109-116; Millard A. R. and P. Bordreuil 1982: 'A Statue from Syria with Assyrian and Aramaic Inscriptions', The Biblical Archaeologist 45:3, 135-141.

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