The Problem of Hellenistic Syria [Da]n, vows of ZYLS(Zoilos) to the god,’’ or (more probably) [H]N NDR
ZYLS L’[LH’ DN]—‘‘[This] (is the) vow (of ) Zoilos to the [god in Dan].’’
On either interpretation, this modest document is of immense signifi-
cance for the cultural and religious history of the Syrian region. Firstly, it is
one of the earliest formal Greek inscriptions from the whole area. Secondly,
it is both the only formal Aramaic (as opposed to Phoenician) inscription and
the only formal Greek-Semitic bilingual inscription (as opposed to ostraca)
from the Syrian region in the Hellenistic age. Thirdly, the archaeological evi-
dence clearly suggests the continuation, or at least the resumption, of worship
at an ancient cult site. Fourthly, the site itself occupies an inland location,
near the headwaters of the Jordan, separated from the coast by some forty
kilometres of hill country, and some fifty kilometres away from the near-
est Greek, or semi-Greek, cities, Damascus and Gadara. There is no way of
knowing whether Zoilos was an immigrant Greek who had either acquired
some knowledge of Aramaic, or at least knew the necessity of having his vow
recorded also in Aramaic; or whether he was a person of Syrian origin who
had learned Greek, and adopted the Greek custom of the dedicatory inscrip-
tion, and paired it with an inscription of a less well established type, in his
native Aramaic. In either case a rustic cult centre saw worship directed to its
nameless deity and recorded in a fine Greek inscription. Here at last we have
a precise example, from the earlier Hellenistic period, of the meeting of two
identifiable cultures.