The Phoenician Seal from Miletus: an Epigraphic Note

Abstract

Anatolia provided several Phoenician inscriptions, and the best-known ones were found in Cilicia. Outside of Cilicia, Phoenician inscriptions are rare in this region. In 2018, Jan-Waalke Meyer published five seals from Miletus in Ionia. One of them represents a sphinx and bears a Phoenician inscription. Its paleography is typical of the second half of the eighth century and the beginning of the seventh century BCE. The iconography and inscription allow this artifact to be attributed to a Phoenician production. To this day, the Phoenician seal from Miletus carries both the oldest and the most northwestern of the Phoenician inscriptions unearthed on the Ionian coast.