2 herbert niehr
script is visible, in, for example, the oldest known aramaic inscription on
the so-called “little altar” from tell halaf (KaI 231; late 10th or early 9th
century B.c.),8 and the votive inscription to the god Melqart from Breğ
near aleppo (KaI 201; second half of the 9th century B.c.).
Further epigraphic changes occur in the inscriptions from tell Fekheriye
(KaI 309). they exhibit several epigraphic innovations compared with the
older aramaic inscriptions. these concern the shape of several letters and
the usage of matres lectionis as vowels.9
From this time onward, the existence of an independent aramaic script
can be assumed. In an 8th-century B.c. hieroglyphic Luwian inscription
from carchemish the prince regent Yariri boasts of his knowledge of
twelve languages and four scripts. the scripts are hieroglyphic Luwian,
phoenician, assyrian, and taymanite, i.e., the aramaic script of Syria.10
Because of the westward expansion of the assyrian empire and its asso-
ciated deportations,11 the aramaeans as well as their language and culture
were able to spread to assyria12 and Babylonia.13 here, the coexistence of
aramaic with the assyrian and Babylonian language as well as the coex-
istence of the aramaic script with cuneiform writing is documented.14 In
8th-century assyria, scribes copying old texts even spoke aramaic as their
everyday language.15 thus, a tablet of the Gilgamesh epic with an unusual
way of writing vowels exhibits an aramaean scribal tradition. It was writ-
ten in the 7th century B.c. and found in Sultantepe.16
there is one known case of an aramaic inscription written in cunei-
form: this is the so-called uruk Incantation from the 3rd century B.c.17
even though none of the textual corpus of aramaean literature of Syria,
8 cf. dankwarth – Müller 1988.
9 cf. andersen – Freedman 1988.
10 the inscription of Yariri in hawkins 2000: 130–133 and cf. esp. Starke 1997a: 389–
392; hawkins 2000: 133; rollinger 2006: 77f.
11 See Lamprichs 1995; Yamada 2000; Bagg 2011.
12 See Garelli 1982; tadmor 1982; id. 1991; Millard 1983; id. 2009; Görke 2004; parpola
2004; Zehnder 2007, and the contribution of M. nissinen in this volume.
13 See Brinkman 1968: 267–288; id. 1977; dietrich 1970; Lipiński 2000a: 409–489; oel-
sner 2007a; Kessler 2008; Fales 2011c; Jursa 2012, and the contribution of M. p. Streck in
this volume.
14 cf., among others, aggoula 1985a; oelsner 1986; id. 2006; id. 2007b; Fales 1980; id.
1986; id. 2000; Geller 1997: 44–47; röllig 2002a; id. 2002b; id. 2005a.
15 cf. Lieberman 1990: 334.
16 cf. George 2003: 369–373 and also röllig 2005b.
17 cf. delsmann 1986–1991; Garbini 2006: 205; Kessler 2008: 468, 471 with fig. 336,
485f.