116 paolo merlo
and greatness” (lines 10–11). in these lines the (superior) present time is
referred to as “in my days” (bymy: lines 9–10), a typical expression20 better
interpreted as a mark of a “narrative” time rather than a reference to an
accurate historical period.21
Similarly, the first part of the poorly preserved panamuwa ii inscrip-
tion (Kai 215) describes the chaotic events before panamuwa’s ascension
to his throne (lines 2–5) and the economic crisis that broke out during
the years preceding his reign (line 6). the author of this inscription uses
the literary topos of high prices22 to describe low agricultural production
and the resulting famine: “a prs–measure (of barley) stood at a (silver)
shekel... .” (line 6). Only after King panamuwa had risen, with the help
of the assyrians, “over the house of his father” (line 7), could the land
of Yādiya reverse the previous crisis so that “there was an abundance of
wheat and barley and sheep and cattle in his days (bywmyh)” (line 9).
On a narrative and ideological level, it is possible to distinguish two
opposing epochs in these two inscriptions: the reign of the present king
(“in my days”), described as a time of abundance, a high quality of life,
and order, and the period of the previous king’s reign, which is usually
portrayed as bad, no matter what the historical reality might have been.
this ideological twofold periodization of time appears also in a brief
narrative preserved in the aramaic treaty inscription of Sefire (Kai 224:
23–26). in this passage we read that the territory of talʾayim, which had
belonged to the house of the King of Kitikka, had passed to another per-
son because the gods had struck down the dynasty, but now—in the pres-
ent time of the narrative—the gods had “restored” (šbt) the territory to
the king and his sons forever.23
a different example of opposition between previous and present eras
is provided by the Bar-rakkab building inscription (Kai 216). While the
previous inscriptions contrast the previous “bad” time with the present
“good” one, Bar-rakkab contrasts a “good” past with the “best” present.
this inscription describes the building (or restoration) of the palace,
20 the use of the expression “my days” to point to the wealthy period of one’s reign also
occurs in Zincirli’s inscription written in phoenician (Kai 24: 12), in the Karatepe inscrip-
tion (Kai 26 a: 5), and in the Mesha inscription (Kai 181: 9).
21 Green 2010: 186–188.
22 the same literary topos is known from the Bible (2 Kgs 6: 25) and other ancient Near
eastern texts; cf. Greenfield 1991b.
23 the Mesha inscription shows the same temporal structure: King Mesha says that,
during the past years, the hostile king Omri oppressed Moab and conquered the land of
Madeba, but “in my days” the god Kamosh “returned” it (Kai 181: 4–9).