Sidon was located near the center of the Hellenistic world.
Sidon cippi gravestones as now displayed at the Louvre in Paris.
(October 24, 2023) Sidon was an independent Phoenician city until 351 BCE when it was conquered and mostly destroyed by the Persian Achaemenid empire under Artaxerxes III. After this trauma, the survivors surrendered to Alexander the Great in 333 BCE. This ushered in a new era of prosperity for Sidon as revealed in its coins and cippi looking gravestones. By then it was no longer a Phoenician city but an international melting pot.
Most (but not all) of the cippi-like gravestones now displayed in the Louvre were collected by Ernest Renan in 1861. Ernest Renan was the French scholar sent by Emperor Napoleon III of France to make a survey of the archaeological sites of Phoenicia. He was allowed by the Turkish authorities to take home to France some of his recorded items. The last ones arrived in 1891 shortly before his death in Ocober 1892. His team uncovered the large necropolis of Magharat Abloun south of Sidon. Later they recorded the royal necropoli at nearby Ayaa and Ain el-Helwe to the west. Because this was a pre-archeaological collection not much else in known about these funeral stones.
(October 24, 2023, updated March 16, 2025) This text is significant because it is one of the earliest to have spaces in the text which separates sentences.
Sidon Gravestone (cippus) 13 having Louvre number AO4933.
(October 26, 2023) The text reads:
(October 26, 2023, updated March 16, 2025)
(October 26, 2023, updated March 16, 2025)
(October 26, 2023)
Sidon gravestone (cippus) having Louvre number AO4935
(October 26, 2023) The text reads:
(October 26, 2023)
(October 26, 2023, updated March 16, 2025)
Cippi in the Louvre.
(October 26, 2023, updated March 16, 2025) This text is significant because it connects letters to form words.
The text reads:
(October 26, 2023, updated March 16, 2025)
(October 26, 2023, updated March 16, 2025)
Sidon gravestone (cippus) having Louvre number AO4918
(October 27, 2023, updated March 16, 2025) The text reads:
(October 27, 2023, updated March 16, 2025)
(October 27, 2023, updated March 16, 2025)
Sidon gravestone (cippus) having Louvre number AO4860
(October 27, 2023, updated March 16, 2025) The text reads:
(October 27, 2023, updated March 16, 2025)
(October 27, 2023, updated March 16, 2025)
Sidon Roman gravestone (cippus) having Louvre number AO4922
(October 27, 2023, updated March 16, 2025) This text is significant because it has both Latin and Druid Akkadian texts. The Akkadian letter style is mostly Aegean island but a few letters are Etruscan suggesting the author may have been a recently Romanized Etruscan trader.
(October 27, 2023, updated March 16, 2025)
(October 27, 2023, updated March 16, 2025)
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(March 16, 2025)
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