cover Rabat Fortress Inscription Side A-B (by H. Danışmaz, Ö. Şahin). Credit Danışmaz H. (2025), Anatolian Studies
Ishtartv.com - syriacpress.com
31/01/2026
The discovery of a Middle Aramaic
inscription at Rabat Fortress, located on a ridge in what is today’s Tunceli
Province in Turkey, has shed new light on the use and administrative status of
Aramaic at a place and time when Greek and Hellenism were dominant.
The Aramaic inscription, from the
second century BC and the first known local Aramaic inscription in a place and
time where Greek was commonly used, is a funerary text, carved-in-stone, in
memory of a local lord of the elite of the Kingdom of Sophene, Arkeonews reports
on the basis of a study by Harun Danışmaz, Selim Ferruh Adalı and
Özgür Şahin. The ancient Kingdom of Sophene was founded somewhere around the
third century BC and maintained independence until 95 BC. It is mostly known
from Greek and Roman sources.
The funerary inscription
commemorates a local nobleman (“rb” meaning “lord” in Aramaic) and explicitly
references the “House of Orontes”, confirming the nobleman’s allegiance to the
royal dynasty that once ruled Armenia and later the kingdoms of Sophene and
neighbor Commagene (now Adiyaman Province). The reference to the “House of
Orontes” is evidence that local elites in Sophene consciously used Orontid and
Achaemenid lineage as a source of legitimacy. The Orontid dynasty and
Achaemenid Empire used Aramaic as their language of state and communication.
The ancient Kingdom of Sophene
was founded somewhere around the third century BC and maintained independence
until 95 BC. King Mithridates II, who ruled the Parthian Empire from 123 to 88
BC and which territory contained much of the former Achemaedian territory,
received submissions from the kings of Armenia, Sophene, Mesopotamia, Gordyene,
and Adiabene (see Kenneth W. Harl in Great Strategic Rivalries). In 95 BC
the Armenian (Artaxiad) king Tigranes II (the Great), who ruled Greater Armenia
from 95-55 BC), conquered the Kingdom of Sohpene bringing it to its end.
Kingdom of Sophene. Image: Wikimedia Commons
Image: H. Danışmaz, Ö. Şahin). Credit Danışmaz H. (2025), Anatolian Studies. Via Arkeonews. Markup.
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