Cippi of Melqart
The Cippi of Melqart is the collective name for two Phoenician marble cippi that were unearthed in Malta under undocumented circumstances and dated to the 2nd century BC. These are votive offerings to the god Melqart, and are inscribed in two languages, Ancient Greek and Phoenician, and in the two corresponding scripts, the Greek and the Phoenician alphabet. They were discovered in the late 17th century, and the identification of their inscription in a letter dated 1694 made them the first Phoenician writing to be identified and published in modern times. Because they present essentially the same text (with some minor differences), the cippi provided the key to the modern understanding of the Phoenician language. In 1758, the French scholar Jean-Jacques Barthélémy relied on their inscription, which used 17 of the 22 letters of the Phoenician alphabet, to decipher the unknown language.

The tradition that the cippi were found in Marsaxlokk was only inferred by their dedication to Heracles, whose temple in Malta had long been identified with the remains at Tas-Silġ. The Grand Master of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller, Fra Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc, presented one of the cippi to Louis XVI in 1782. This cippus is currently in the Louvre Museum in Paris, while the other rests in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta, Malta. The inscription is known as KAI 47.
Q41642
Phoenician
Concept
Q40861
marble
Concept
Q1752223
cippi
Concept
Q233
Malta
LOC
Q843408
Melqart
MISC
Q35497
Ancient Greek
Concept
Q36734
Phoenician
Concept
Q8216
Greek
Concept
Q26752
Phoenician alphabet
Concept
Q121842
French
Concept
Q2418816
Jean-Jacques Barthélémy
PER
Q781921
Marsaxlokk
LOC
Q122248
Heracles
MISC
Q7687070
Tas-Silġ
LOC
Q952136
Grand Master
UNK
Q187549
the Order of the Knights Hospitaller
PER
Q426814
Fra Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc
Concept
Q7732
Louis XVI
PER
Q19675
Louvre Museum
LOC
Q90
Paris
LOC
Q2898298
National Museum of Archaeology
LOC
Q23800
Valletta, Malta
LOC
Q16157792
KAI
ORG
Q5121287
Cippi of Melqart
LOC
1694-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1694
DATE
1758-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1758
DATE
1782-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1782
DATE
+2^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
2
NUMBER
+17^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
17
NUMBER
+17^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
17
NUMBER
+22^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
22
NUMBER
+47^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
47
NUMBER
made from material
instance of
collection
writing system
located in the administrative territorial entity
location
located in the administrative territorial entity