[LEBANON]. [PHENICY]. [ESHMOUNAZOR II, KING OF SIDON (SARCOP - Lot 255

Lot 255
Go to lot
Estimation :
5000 - 6000 EUR
Result without fees
Result : 8 500EUR
[LEBANON]. [PHENICY]. [ESHMOUNAZOR II, KING OF SIDON (SARCOP - Lot 255
[LEBANON]. [PHENICY]. [ESHMOUNAZOR II, KING OF SIDON (SARCOPHAGUS)]. Important file relating to the discovery and donation of the Sarcophagus of Eshmounazor II, king of Sidon (Saida, Lebanon). The sarcophagus of Eshmounazor II king of Sidon (5th century BC) was discovered in 1855 by Alphonse Durighello, consular agent of France in Sidon, then through Aimé Péretié, French consul in Beirut, donated to the Louvre by the Duke of Luynes in 1856. His transport to Paris and his exhibition to the public represented, for the time, a real media event. They triggered the sending of an archaeological mission to Phoenicia in 1860, entrusted by Emperor Napoleon III to Ernest Renan. The sarcophagus is important among other things for its epigraphic interest: it is the support of the longest Phoenician inscription (in Canaanite Phoenician, Phoenician alphabet) found in Lebanon, the only one that relates historical events on the reign of the Phoenician king Eshmunazor II. The iconography of this sarcophagus shows an Egyptian origin, testifying to the transfers between Egypt and Phoenicia: the dead man, clutched in his shroud from which the head emerges, is wearing a tripartite wig, a false beard and an ousekh necklace ending on either side with a hawk's head. On the shroud is engraved a long inscription of twenty-two lines in alphabetical Phoenician, capital for the history of the Achaemenid Persian period: "I Eshmounazor, king of the Sidonians, son of king Tabnit, king of the Sidonians, grandson of king Eshmounazor, king of the Sidonians and my mother Amoashtart, priestess of Ashtart our Lady, queen, daughter of king Eshmounazor, king of the Sidonians". The sarcophagus is currently kept at the Louvre Museum in the collections of the Department of Oriental Antiquities. It is around this major monument that the Louvre's collection of Phoenician antiquities has been developed and organized. The present set contributes additional archival and
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue