The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria

74 holger gzella

1.4 Samʾalian and Aramaic at Zincirli

another language variety close to aramaic emerged in the kingdom of
Samʾal, modern Zincirli, in northwestern Syria, where it appears to have
succeeded phoenician as the regional prestige idiom after the 9th century
B.c.10 this change may reflect a shift in political loyalties as well as in
cultural preferences. two relatively long royal inscriptions by the kings
panamuwa (mid­8th century B.c.) and Bar­rakkab (second half of the
8th century B.c.) constitute the chief witnesses. as some features agree
with aramaic while others do not, the place of Samʾalian within north­
west Semitic is still debated.11 distinctive grammatical phenomena will be
treated separately in the present overview. the use of a first­person sin­
gular pronoun ʾnk ‘i’, the lack of a post­positive definite article, the pres­
ence of n­stem forms, and, especially, the distinction between nominative
and genitive­accusative in the masc. plural can be explained as archaic
vestiges inherited from an earlier type of northwest Semitic. as a conse­
quence, it could be suggested that Samʾalian still mirrors a developmental
stage prior to the split of northwest Semitic into aramaic and canaanite.
the area’s peripheral location may have cocooned this idiom from several
linguistic innovations originating in the central areas of Syria­palestine.
Since most of the aforementioned traits (leaving apart the masc. plural)
match the situation in canaanite, however, these could be explained as
contact­induced.12 Samʾalian would then belong to aramaic, distinguished
only by some minor regional traits like the direct object marker wt. the
pronoun ʾnk and an occasional n­stem form may indeed constitute indi­
vidual lexical loans; the post­positive article, on the other hand, was not
yet fully developed in old aramaic, hence its absence in Samʾalian is not
really surprising.
Soon afterward, the rulers of Samʾal decided to adopt a form of aramaic
closely resembling the central Syrian variety, perhaps due to the latter’s
growing importance. it is documented by six texts and fragments issued by
the same King Bar­rakkab, as well as by four seals and silver bars, which
contain little linguistic information. the recently discovered inscription

10 the use of phoenician in Zincirli is documented by the Kulamuwa inscription (Kai 24)
and perhaps also the Kulamuwa scepter (Kai 25). the latter is sometimes subsumed under
Samʾalian or aramaic because of the grapheme {h} used for the third­person masc. singu­
lar suffix (which is atypical for the phoenician dialect adopted by the rulers of Zincirli) yet
may in fact reflect a transitional stage (cf. gianto 2008: 12 n. 2).
11 noorlander 2012 provides an up­to­date assessment of all relevant arguments.
12 gianto 1995 and id. 2008: 12.