PHOENICIAN BRONZE CUP IN JAMAICA

PHOENICIAN BRONZE CUP IN JAMAICA

Below are images of a bronze beaker which Izett (Steve) Solomon (a collector of Taino objects) posted elsewhere. and they are reproduced here with the owner's permission. It was purchased in Jamaica. The dealer said it was dug up 'in the bush'. Weight approx 23 oz., height 4 1/2", width 3 15/16". 
http://www.collector-antiquities.com/typo3temp/pics/96c2e48def.jpg

Many more photographs, which show details, were at Lisa's Gallery (Two samples of this collection appear below, the 3rd and 4th images)

It has an intriguing inscription. I am sure it is "Canaanian" (West Semitic), that is,  Phoenician. (Some say that 'Phoenician', and  'Punic', should be reserved for the people based in Lebanon in the Iron Age, after 1200 BCE: but in the Bronze Age, Egyptians were speaking of "the lands of the Fenkhu", and this seems to correspond to Phoenician. In any case, my term 'Canaanian' is used instead of 'Canaanite' because of the bad vibrations it acquired in the Bible, and also because this moves the stress accent from the first syllable to the second syllable where it should be, as also in 'Canaan'.)

On the right-hand part of the inscription, the first character  is a hook (Hebrew WAW, meaning hook or nail) and could represent W in the Canaanite proto-alphabet (the WS logo-consonantary) and WA in the WS logo-syllabary; it actually has the characteristic form for the syllabary [-( ]; the consonantary letter looks like a lollypop [--o ]. To the left of the hook (jumping over one sign) is a 'question mark' (a harp, TI), then a RU (head and neck of a vulture) and a NI (tusk). None of these has a counterpart in the consonantary, and so this is the syllabary. Incidentally, I have seen NI and RU in combination on four ancient lamps, and niru means 'lamp'; this has certainly confirmed the identification of these two signs, but this object is not a lamp, and NI-RU (or RU-NI) will have a different reference here.

For an introduction to this writing system, see the article on the  Canaanite syllabary.

My suggested transcription of the characters is (in accordance with my basic tables of signs, and forms of the syllabograms found on other inscriptions):

There is a mark, possibly two short strokes [ = ], above the first character; they stand for Dh /d/ in the proto-alphabet, and apparently also occur in the syllabary as ZA. There is another pair below, longer and more widely separated, which do not seem to constitute a meaningful sign.
1 WA (wawu 'hook') as noted above.
2 NU?? (nubtu 'bee') seems to be merely a vertical stroke, but if the two strokes above the WA could be connected with it then it could be NU; notice, with the two snakes (9 and 13) the inscriber does not join up every detail (head and body), and likewise with the door (8). However, it is just possible that the presumed WA is actually the body of the bee; but the single stroke, would then be hard to identify as a sign. However, it may be a shorthand  form of NU, with all the legs and appendages omitted; it could not be confused with any other sign in the system; RU, RI, NI, NA are all here and GA is a boomerang. A possible analogy for this as a reduced form of a bee (NU) is the Egyptian hieroglyph Z5, a diagonal stroke [\] used for characters that were difficult to draw.
[2 May 2025] NA Looking again at the glyph, I would accept it as a snake, and thus NA; it is a third variant form, differing from the other two versions of a snake (9 and 13), but having a shape that is close to the Egyptian cobra hieroglyph (I10); the main stroke (vertical) is too short to constitute a whole letter in this sequence, and the faint acute angle makes it equal in size to the preceding WA. An apt analogy can be found on the Huron Stone from the copper region of the Great Lakes in North America.
3 TI (tibbuttu 'harp'); the usual form is more angular than rounded.
4 RU (ruhhamu 'vulture') a simplified character (also found as a picture of the bird).
5 NI (nighhatu 'tusk').
6 TA (tarashu 'wine') possibly represents a vine stand.
7 RI (riglu 'leg').
8 DA (daltu 'door') with a triangular door (like Delta), attested elsewhere, but a rectangle is normal.
9 NA (nahhashu 'snake') with a head, apparently.
10 SHA (shadu/thadu 'breast'), represents Th in the consonantary, and ultimately becomes Greek Sigma and Roman S.
11 SU (sukkatu 'booth'), a rare sign; it is not quite the same as 10; but the two other examples I have seen are horizontal in stance; otherwise this could be HI [ )-(- ] (a person celebrating), the origin of E in the alphabet.
12 KA (kappu 'hand') usually in the form /|\ in the syllabary, and \|/ in the consonantary, but any form of hand can be used for K in the proto-alphabet.
13 NA (nahhashu 'snake'); I am inclined to take this a snake, even though it is in a different pose than sign 9, and the tick below it has to be the head; otherwise, if it is simply an inverted U, its value is `U.
14 HA (haykalu 'temple'); possibly BA (baytu 'house'), as both signs represent the ground plan of a building.

At which end does the inscription start? All the syllabic texts from Byblos run from right to left (sinistrograde). But scanning along the line in both directions, looking for possible words, 12+11 (hand + booth) produces KASU 'cup' (Akkadian kâsu, Hebrew kôs, meaning 'cup', for wine or oil;  but some objects bearing this name are more like bowls; and they are frequently made of metal). The occurrence of this word is stating the obvious, but it provides welcome support for validating the system of decipherment (as did the four lamps I mentioned, which had NIRU 'lamp' included in their legends).

SHA NA (10, 9): sha is a relative pronoun; the snake may say NA, as the acrophonic syllable-sign (syllabogram) from nahhash/nah.ash 'snake'; or it may be a logogram (word-sign), denoting 'snake' (in any language the reader chooses, but obviously it would be West Semitic nahhash here); or it could function as a rebus ('rebogram') and represent another word (or part of a word) which sounds the same as nahhash, and in this case that would be the word for 'copper' or 'bronze'. There seems to be an example of this in Sinai inscription 352, where NSK N may mean "pourers of copper", referring to the metal-workers at the turquoise mines. As a sideline to this, the healing serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness (Numbers 11:9) was (in Hebrew, without the vowels) a n-hh-sh n-hh-sh-t (a snake of bronze, a bronze serpent); here the word has a final -t, but it can do without it (in Aramaic and Arabic). So, the two characters may be taken in conjunction with KASU and understood as saying "a cup made of bronze":

(14-9) "A cup (kasu) which (sha) (is made of) bronze (snake rebus, nahhash)"

HANA (14,13): if this is not BA`U ('Seek'), then hana could be the Semitic interjection, "Behold!" or "Here is ..."; or perhaps "This is ...".

Surprisingly, I can make sense of the remainder of the text only by starting at the other end.  I have seen cases of meandering lines running from different sides in Sinai inscriptions (Sinai 380, 365A, 383). In this case I think it is one hand writing the whole series of signs. The two snakes are heading from left to right. The door has its post on the right, and seems to be looking leftwards; but the vulture is looking rightwards

WA NU? (1, 2): this could be the word for 'wine'; in the West Semitic languages, w often became y, and so Hebrew has yayin 'wine', and Ugaritic has yn, as in ks yn, "a cup of wine".  I have proposed that WN on the Wadi el Hol inscription is 'wine'; and YN is found on the Beth-Shemesh ostracon.

TI RU NI TA RI DA (3-8): two verbs seem to be before us, both possibly from roots connected with wine; tarida might stem from RD 'tread', with reference to a wine-press, or 'subdue', 'rule'; tiruni could be from RN(N), 'exult' 'utter a cry of jubilation', or 'subdue' (Arabic 'daze with wine'), and used in Psalm 78:65 meaning 'overcome' with wine (miyyayin), or raising a shout from inebriation. Note that the -ni could also encompass a suffix, 'me'.

[2 May 2025] Notice that the character interpreted as TA was introduced thus: "6 TA (tarashu 'wine') possibly represents a vine stand." It could be a logogram here. It needs to be added that the word might be turashu, and this would allow the cross-sign [+] (Tin the alphabet) to be TA, from taw ("mark").

I hesitate to offer a translation, but, with the assumption that a pleasurable experience is being described, this might be the meaning:

(1-8) "Wine (wana) inebriates (tiruni) (me) and new wine overwhelms (tarida)"
The missing "and" may be "u", which can not be represented in this script, as this system lacks signs for vowels with no accompanying consonant.

The West Semitic syllabary was used in the Bronze Age (before 1200 BCE, before the common or current or Christian era). Accordingly this object was brought across the Atlantic Ocean in the Bronze Age, some three thousand years before Christopher Columbus sailed over this ocean blue in fourteeen hundred and ninety-two (CE, of the current era).
   Additional confirmation of this can be found on stones from Puerto Rico that have syllable-signs from this same script.
https://cryptcracker.blogspot.com/2019/10/phoenicians-in-puerto-rico.html
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article235714732.html