Motya was an ancient and powerful city on San Pantaleo Island off the west coast of Sicily , in the Stagnone Lagoon between Drepanum (modern Trapani ) and Lilybaeum (modern Marsala ). It is within the present-day commune of Marsala , Italy .
80-558: [REDACTED] Look up mtw in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. MTW may refer to: Places [ edit ] Motya , written in Phoenician as MṬWʾ Science literature [ edit ] Misner, Thorne & Wheeler's book Gravitation on Einstein's general theory of relativity Media/literature works [ edit ] Medieval: Total War , 2001 video game Mock
160-555: A prestige language , the rest of Anatolia. Phoenician was also spoken in the Phoenician colonies along the coasts of the southwestern Mediterranean Sea , including those of modern Tunisia , Morocco , Libya and Algeria as well as Malta , the west of Sicily , southwest Sardinia , the Balearic Islands and southernmost Spain . In modern times, the language was first decoded by Jean-Jacques Barthélemy in 1758, who noted that
240-703: A Carthaginian colony, but this may not be strictly correct. As the Greek colonies in Sicily increased in numbers and importance, the Carthaginians gradually abandoned their settlements in the east and concentrated themselves in the three principal colonies of Soluntum , Panormus (modern Palermo ), and Motya. Motya became one of the chief Carthaginian strongholds, as well as one of their most important commercial cities in Sicily due to its proximity to Carthage and its opportune situation for communication with North Africa , as well as
320-617: A noun in the dual and the rest are nouns in the singular. They all distinguish gender: 𐤀𐤇𐤃 ʼḥd , 𐤀𐤔𐤍𐤌/𐤔𐤍𐤌 (ʼ)šnm (construct state 𐤀𐤔𐤍/𐤔𐤍 (ʼ)šn ), 𐤔𐤋𐤔 šlš , 𐤀𐤓𐤁𐤏 ʼrbʻ , 𐤇𐤌𐤔 ḥmš , 𐤔𐤔 šš , 𐤔𐤁𐤏 šbʻ , 𐤔𐤌𐤍/𐤔𐤌𐤍𐤄 šmn(h) , 𐤕𐤔𐤏 tšʻ , 𐤏𐤔𐤓/𐤏𐤎𐤓 ʻšr/ʻsr vs 𐤀𐤇𐤕 ʼḥt , 𐤔𐤕𐤌 štm , 𐤔𐤋𐤔𐤕 šlšt , 𐤀𐤓𐤁𐤏𐤕 ʼrbʻt , 𐤇𐤌𐤔𐤕 ḥmšt , 𐤔𐤔𐤕 ššt , 𐤔𐤁𐤏𐤕 šbʻt , 𐤔𐤌𐤍𐤕 šmnt , unattested, 𐤏𐤔𐤓𐤕 ʻšrt . The tens are morphologically masculine plurals of
400-485: A panelled carpet with a complex geometric border and with the panels containing depictions of hunting wild animals (a lion attacking a bull, a bird of prey, a deer). Its format dates it from similar ones in mainland Greece and its colonies to the 3rd century BC. The peristyle has residential rooms around it. On the lower level in the southwestern part of the house are 6 service rooms with three large pithoi (food storage vessels). The 399 BC Battle of Motya , part of
480-486: A rare example of a victor of a chariot race who must have been very wealthy in order to commission such a work. It was found built into Phoenician fortifications which were quickly erected before Dionysios I of Syracuse invaded and sacked Motya in 397 BC. Its superb quality implies that it was made by a leading Greek artist in the period following their defeat of the Persians, but its style is unlike any other of this period. It
560-468: A reduced schwa vowel that occurred in pre-stress syllables in verbs and two syllables before stress in nouns and adjectives, while other instances of Y as in chyl/χυλ and even chil/χιλ for 𐤊𐤋 /kull/ "all" in Poenulus can be interpreted as a further stage in the vowel shift resulting in fronting ( [y] ) and even subsequent delabialization of /u/ and /uː/ . Short /*i/ in originally-open syllables
640-711: A separate and united dialect or was merely a superficially defined part of a broader language continuum . Through their maritime trade, the Phoenicians spread the use of the alphabet to the Maghreb and Europe, where it was adopted by the Greeks . Later, the Etruscans adopted a modified version for their own use, which, in turn, was modified and adopted by the Romans and became the Latin alphabet. In
720-531: A small channel opened in the Kothon wall towards the sea. In the later Roman period (2nd to 4th c. AD) it was used for fish farming and the production of salt. The city walls originally enclosed the entire island and are best preserved along the east coast. In 1874 the area of the North Gate was discovered where a large sculpture ornamented the double-arch passage. The city walls were revealed further by G. Whitaker at
800-483: A type of cemetery for the cremated remains of children, possibly (but not entirely proven) as sacrifice to Tanit or Baʿal Hammon is exposed. Many of the ancient residences are open to the public. The foundation of the settlement dates from around 800 BC, about a century after the foundation of Carthage in Tunisia. Like Carthage, it was originally a Phoenician colony, who were fond of choosing similar sites, and probably
880-480: Is Mozzia . The island first received the name San Pantaleo in the 11th century from Basilian monks . Between the promontory of Lilybaeum (Capo Boéo) and that of Aegithallus (San Teodoro), the coast forms a deep bight, in front of which lies a long group of low rocky islets, called the Stagnone . Within these, and considerably nearer to the mainland, lies Motya island formerly called San Pantaleo, on which lie
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#1732881047057960-418: Is an artificial lake on an otherwise very dry island that had long puzzled archaeologists since the first excavations by Joseph Whitaker in 1906/07. The lake was fed by the only fresh water spring on the island and enclosed with a rectangular, 52.5 m × 35.7 m (172 ft 3 in × 117 ft 2 in), perimeter wall of carved limestone blocks with a drain towards the sea. The basin, which
1040-411: Is believed it must have been looted from a Greek city conquered by Carthage in 409-405 BC. Recent archaeology carrìed out by La Sapienza Universìty in the area of the "Kothon" found the earlìest occupation of the Phoenician settlement dating from the second quarter of the 8th century BC. It started at the anchorage identified on the southern shore of the island, and grew around the nearby springs, where
1120-650: Is clearly distinct from the preposition את ʼt (/ ʼitt /). The most common negative marker is 𐤁𐤋 bl (/ bal /), negating verbs but sometimes also nouns; another one is 𐤀𐤉 ʼy (/ ʼī /), expressing both nonexistence and the negation of verbs. Negative commands or prohibitions are expressed with 𐤀𐤋 ʼl (/ ʼal /). "Lest" is 𐤋𐤌 lm . Some common conjunctions are 𐤅 w (originally perhaps / wa-? /, but certainly / u- / in Late Punic), "and" 𐤀𐤌 ʼm ( /ʼim/ ), "when", and 𐤊 k ( /kī/ ), "that; because; when". There
1200-569: Is commonly believed to have been destroyed by the Ancient Greeks." Discovered items include cooking pans, Phoenician-style vases, altars, and looms. During the Middle Ages , Basilian monks settled on the island and renamed it San Pantaleo, and in 1888 it was rediscovered by Joseph Whitaker . The Motya Charioteer sculpture found in 1979 is on display at the Giuseppe Whitaker museum. It is
1280-587: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Motya Many of the city's ancient monuments have been excavated and are visible today. Motya has become known for the marble statue of the Motya Charioteer , found in 1979 and on display at the local Giuseppe Whitaker museum. The Carthaginian settlement was written in their abjad as HMṬWʾ ( Punic : 𐤄𐤌𐤈𐤅𐤀 ) or MṬWʾ ( Punic : 𐤌𐤈𐤅𐤀 , possibly Motye ). The name seems to derive from
1360-471: Is quite similar to Biblical Hebrew and other languages of the group, at least in its early stages, and is therefore mutually intelligible with them. The area in which Phoenician was spoken, which the Phoenicians called Pūt , includes the northern Levant , specifically the areas now including Syria , Lebanon , the Western Galilee , parts of Cyprus , some adjacent areas of Anatolia , and, at least as
1440-466: Is some evidence for remains of the Proto-Semitic genitive grammatical case as well. While many of the endings coalesce in the standard orthography, inscriptions in the Latin and Greek alphabet permit the reconstruction of the noun endings, which are also the adjective endings, as follows: In late Punic, the final /-t/ of the feminine was apparently dropped: 𐤇𐤌𐤋𐤊𐤕 ḥmlkt "son of
1520-703: Is the so-called Canaanite shift , shared by Biblical Hebrew, but going further in Phoenician. The Proto-Northwest Semitic /aː/ and /aw/ became not merely /oː/ as in Tiberian Hebrew , but /uː/ . Stressed Proto-Semitic /a/ became Tiberian Hebrew /ɔː/ ( /aː/ in other traditions), but Phoenician /oː/ . The shift is proved by Latin and Greek transcriptions like rūs/ρους for "head, cape" 𐤓𐤀𐤔 /ruːʃ/ (Tiberian Hebrew rōš /roːʃ/, ראש ); similarly notice stressed /o/ (corresponding to Tiberian Hebrew /a/ ) samō/σαμω for "he heard" 𐤔𐤌𐤏 /ʃaˈmoʕ/ (Tiberian Hebrew šāmaʻ /ʃɔːˈmaʕ/, שָׁמַע ); similarly
1600-558: Is thought that Phoenician had the short vowels /a/ , /i/ , /u/ and the long vowels /aː/ , /iː/ , /uː/ , /eː/ , /oː/ . The Proto-Semitic diphthongs /aj/ and /aw/ are realized as /eː/ and /oː/ . That must have happened earlier than in Biblical Hebrew since the resultant long vowels are not marked with the semivowel letters ( bēt "house" was written 𐤁𐤕 bt , in contrast to Biblical Hebrew בית byt ). The most conspicuous vocalic development in Phoenician
1680-516: Is usually / -im / 𐤌 m . The same enclitic pronouns are also attached to verbs to denote direct objects. In that function, some of them have slightly divergent forms: first singular / -nī / 𐤍 n and probably first plural / -nu(ː) /. The near demonstrative pronouns ("this") are written, in standard Phoenician, 𐤆 z [za] for the singular and 𐤀𐤋 ʼl [ʔilːa] for the plural. Cypriot Phoenician displays 𐤀𐤆 ʼz [ʔizːa] instead of 𐤆 z [za]. Byblian still distinguishes, in
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#17328810470571760-553: Is written 𐤌𐤍𐤌 mnm (possibly pronounced [miːnumːa], similar to Akkadian [miːnumːeː]) and 𐤌𐤍𐤊 mnk (possibly pronounced [miːnukːa]). The relative pronoun is a 𐤔 š [ʃi], either followed or preceded by a vowel. The definite article was /ha-/ , and the first consonant of the following word was doubled. It was written 𐤄 h but in late Punic also 𐤀 [ʼ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) and 𐤏 [ʻ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) because of
1840-1306: The Byblian and the late Punic varieties). They appear in a slightly different form depending on whether or not they follow plural-form masculine nouns (and so are added after a vowel). The former is given in brackets with the abbreviation a.V. Singular: 1st: / -ī / [∅] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) , also 𐤉 y (a.V. / -ayy / y ) 2nd masc. / -ka(ː) / 𐤊 k 2nd fem. / -ki(ː) / 𐤊 k 3rd masc. / -oː / [∅] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) , Punic 𐤀 [ʼ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) , (a.V. / -ēyu(ː) / y ) 3rd fem. / -aː / [∅] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) , Punic 𐤀 [ʼ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) (a.V. / -ēya(ː) / y ) Plural: 1st: / -on / 𐤍 n 2nd masc. / -kum / 𐤊𐤌 km 2nd fem. unattested, perhaps / -kin / 𐤊𐤍 kn 3rd masc. / -om / 𐤌 m (a.V. / -nom / 𐤍𐤌 nm ) 3rd fem. / -am / 𐤌 m (a.V. / -nam / 𐤍𐤌 nm ) In addition, according to some research,
1920-725: The International Phonetic Alphabet : The system reflected in the abjad above is the product of several mergers. From Proto-Northwest Semitic to Canaanite, *š and *ṯ have merged into *š , *ḏ and *z have merged into *z , and *ṯ̣ , *ṣ́ and *ṣ have merged into *ṣ . Next, from Canaanite to Phoenician, the sibilants *ś and *š were merged as *š , *ḫ and *ḥ were merged as ḥ , and *[ʻ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) and * ġ were merged as *[ʻ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) . For
2000-434: The Phoenician triliteral root MṬR , which would give it the meaning of "a wool-spinning center". Motya is the latinization of the island's Greek name, variously written Motýa ( Μοτύα ) or Motýē ( Μοτύη ). The Greeks claimed the place was named for a woman named Motya whom they connected with the myths around Hercules . The town's Italian name appears as both Mozia and Mothia ; its Sicilian name
2080-526: The Syracusan exile, who had established himself on its ruins, laid waste the territories of Motya and Panormus. During the second expedition of the Carthaginians under Hamilcar (407 BC), these two harbours became the permanent stations of the Carthaginian fleet. In common with the other Phoenician settlements in Sicily, it passed under the government or dependency of Carthage , since Diodorus calls it
2160-548: The lenition of stop consonants that happened in most other Northwest Semitic languages such as Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic (cf. Hackett vs Segert and Lyavdansky). The consonant /p/ may have been generally transformed into /f/ in Punic and in late Phoenician, as it was in Proto-Arabic. Certainly, Latin-script renditions of late Punic include many spirantized transcriptions with ph , th and kh in various positions (although
2240-607: The 3rd century BC appeared the practice of using final 'ālep [REDACTED] to mark the presence of any final vowel and, occasionally, of yōd [REDACTED] to mark a final long [iː] . Later, mostly after the destruction of Carthage in the so-called "Neo-Punic" inscriptions, that was supplemented by a system in which wāw [REDACTED] denoted [u] , yōd [REDACTED] denoted [i] , 'ālep [REDACTED] denoted [e] and [o] , ʿayin [REDACTED] denoted [a] and hē [REDACTED] and ḥēt [REDACTED] could also be used to signify [a] . This latter system
2320-577: The G-stem, the following forms: The missing forms above can be inferred from the correspondences between the Proto-Northwest Semitic ancestral forms and the attested Phoenician counterparts: the PNWS participle forms are * /pāʻil-, pāʻilīma, pāʻil(a)t, pāʻilāt, paʻūl, paʻūlīm, paʻult or paʻūlat, paʻūlāt/ . The derived stems are: Most of the stems apparently also had passive and reflexive counterparts,
2400-476: The Latin alphabet, which also indicated the vowels. Those later inscriptions, in addition with some inscriptions in Greek letters and transcriptions of Phoenician names into other languages, represent the main source of knowledge about Phoenician vowels. The following table presents the consonant phonemes of the Phoenician language as represented in the Phoenician alphabet, alongside their standard Semiticist transliteration and reconstructed phonetic values in
2480-495: The North African coast, despite their ancient common ancestry. This led to Carthage defeating and demolishing Motya in the mid-sixth century BC. Motya recovered and the population quickly rebuilt the city on a monumental scale and, after two centuries without them, built the first defensive walls, some of the earliest in the central Mediterranean. Motya is first mentioned by Hecataeus of Miletus , and Thucydides notes it among
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2560-543: The Phoenician orthography, also eventually merged at some point, either in Classical Phoenician or in Late Punic. In later Punic, the laryngeals and pharyngeals seem to have been entirely lost. Neither these nor the emphatics could be adequately represented by the Latin alphabet, but there is also evidence to that effect from Punic script transcriptions. There is no consensus on whether Phoenician-Punic ever underwent
2640-516: The Tyro-Sidonian dialect, from which the Punic language eventually emerged, spread across the Mediterranean through trade and colonization, whereas the ancient dialect of Byblos , known from a corpus of only a few dozen extant inscriptions, played no expansionary role. However, the very slight differences in language and the insufficient records of the time make it unclear whether Phoenician formed
2720-664: The Week , British TV programme which debuted in 2005 Martin the Warrior , 1993 fantasy novel Menschen Technik Wissenschaft (MTW), the preceding show of Einstein on Swiss television SRF Transport [ edit ] MTW, the IATA airport code for Manitowoc County Airport in Manitowoc, Wisconsin Maximum taxi weight, or maximum ramp weight , maximum weight for an aircraft being maneuvered on
2800-550: The West Gate and the excavation of the western fortress. Since 2015 archaeology was resumed on the walls between the East Tower and the North Gate. The 4 phases are: This house is built on two levels against the city walls on the seashore, suggesting the walls were no longer in use and in ruins. On the upper level is a courtyard with a peristyle paved with a pebble mosaic which is the only example of its type in Sicily. It resembles
2880-409: The addition of *iy 𐤉 -y . Composite numerals are formed with w- 𐤅 "and", e.g. 𐤏𐤔𐤓 𐤅𐤔𐤍𐤌 ʻšr w šnm for "twelve". The verb inflects for person, number, gender, tense and mood. Like for other Semitic languages, Phoenician verbs have different "verbal patterns" or "stems", expressing manner of action, level of transitivity and voice. The perfect or suffix-conjugation, which expresses
2960-435: The addition of 𐤍 -n or 𐤕 -t . Other prepositions are not like that: 𐤀𐤋 ʻl "upon", .𐤏𐤃 ʻd "until", 𐤀𐤇𐤓 ʼḥr "after", 𐤕𐤇𐤕 tḥt "under", 𐤁𐤉𐤍, 𐤁𐤍 b(y)n "between". New prepositions are formed with nouns: 𐤋𐤐𐤍 lpn "in front of", from 𐤋 l- "to" and 𐤐𐤍 pn "face". There is a special preposited marker of a definite object 𐤀𐤉𐤕 ʼyt (/ ʼiyyūt /?), which, unlike Hebrew,
3040-508: The beginnìng of the last century. Their systematic exploration started in the 1960s by the Brltish Expeditlon who focused on the North and South Gates. From 1974 to 1992 La Sapienza University of Rome carried out yearly campaigns on walls, especially along the eastern and northern shores. Four major constructlonal phases were identified. They resumed excavation in 2002 with the identification of
3120-691: The case endings -u and -i , was written ma-ta-an-ba[ʼ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) a-al (likely Phoenician spelling *𐤌𐤕𐤍𐤁𐤏𐤋) two centuries later. However, evidence has been found for a retention of the genitive case in the form of the first-singular possessive suffix: 𐤀𐤁𐤉 ʼby /[ʼ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) abiya/ "of my father" vs 𐤀𐤁 ʼb /[ʼ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) abī/ "my father". If true, this may suggest that cases were still distinguished to some degree in other forms as well. The written forms and
3200-489: The chief colonies of the Phoenicians in Sicily at the time of the Athenian expedition in 415 BC. A few years later (409 BC) when the Carthaginian army under general Hannibal Mago landed at the promontory of Lilybaeum , he laid up his fleet for security in the gulf around Motya, while he advanced with his land forces along the coast to attack Selinus . After the fall of the latter city, we are told that Hermocrates ,
3280-472: The city with the Greek legend "ΜΟΤΥΑΙΟΝ". They are, however, of great rarity and imitated those of the neighbouring city of Segesta . Archaeology has shown (e.g. the House of the mosaics) that it continued to be inhabited, including by wealthy Greeks. In 2006 archaeological digs uncovered a house built against the town's walls, the finds from which have shown that the town had a "thriving population long after it
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3360-467: The earliest sacred area was erected (Temple C5). This area initiated rapid growth of the town and houses spread over the acropolis (which had already hosted a huge prehìstoric village). Three main centres soon became established: At Ieast two thirds of the ìsland were still left free for agriculture. A cothon , as it usually spelled in English, is a typical feature of Phoenician ports. The cothon at Motya
3440-406: The east of the Mediterranean region, the language was in use as late as the 1st century BC, when it seems to have gone extinct there. Punic colonisation spread Phoenician to the western Mediterranean, where the distinct Punic language developed. Punic also died out, but it seems to have survived far longer than Phoenician, until the sixth century, perhaps even into the ninth century. Phoenician
3520-527: The former differing through vowels, the latter also through the infix 𐤕 -t- . The G stem passive is attested as 𐤐𐤉𐤏𐤋 pyʻl , /pyʻal/ < * /puʻal/ ; t-stems can be reconstructed as 𐤉𐤕𐤐𐤏𐤋 ytpʻl /yitpaʻil/ (tG) and 𐤉𐤕𐤐𐤏𐤋 yptʻʻl /yiptaʻʻil/ (Dt). Some prepositions are always prefixed to nouns, deleting, if present, the initial /h/ of the definite article: such are 𐤁 b- "in", 𐤋 l- "to, for", 𐤊 k- "as" and 𐤌 m- / min / "from". They are sometimes found in forms extended through
3600-546: The formidable catapult made its appearance for the first time) were brought up to the walls, the Motyans continued a desperate resistance and after the walls and towers were breached by the overwhelming forces of the enemy, they still defended from street to street and from house to house. Their struggle only increased the hatred of the Sicilian Greeks for the Carthaginians and when the troops of Dionysius were victorious, they put
3680-629: The ground Maximum takeoff weight , alternate abbreviation instead of MTOW Marinette, Tomahawk and Western Railroad , see List of Wisconsin railroads Other [ edit ] Magahat language (ISO 639 language code: mtw) Mission to the World , mission-sending agency for the Presbyterian Church in America Machine Tool Wire Maoism (Third Worldism) , an economic and political philosophy Topics referred to by
3760-576: The houses were lofty and of solid construction, with narrow streets ( στενωποί ) between them, which facilitated the desperate defence of the inhabitants. Much of the walls, with those of two gateways, can be seen whose circuit is about 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi). The island of Motya is owned and operated by the Whitaker Foundation (Palermo), known for Marsala wines . The museum has artifacts that display Egyptian , Corinthian , Attic , Roman , Punic and Hellenic influences. The Tophet ,
3840-646: The interpretation of these spellings is not entirely clear) as well as the letter f for the original *p. However, in Neo-Punic, *b lenited to /v/ contiguous to a following consonant, as in the Latin transcription lifnim for 𐤋𐤁𐤍𐤌 *lbnm "for his son". Knowledge of the vowel system is very imperfect because of the characteristics of the writing system. During most of its existence, Phoenician writing showed no vowels at all, and even as vowel notation systems did eventually arise late in its history, they never came to be applied consistently to native vocabulary. It
3920-586: The largest known sacred pool in the ancient Mediterranean world and the area all around the Kothon, the Temenos or temple area, was also sacred and was enclosed by a semicircular wall which has been exposed. Next to the Kothon are three temples, the Temple of Baal, the Temple of Astarte and the "sanctuary of the Holy Waters". The temples of Baʿal and Astarte date to the first Phoenician settlement 800–750 BC. At this time,
4000-460: The mid-11th century BC, when it is first attested on inscribed bronze arrowheads , and as "Phoenician" only after 1050 BC. The Phoenician phonetic alphabet is generally believed to be at least the partial ancestor of almost all modern alphabets. From a traditional linguistic perspective, Phoenician was composed of a variety of dialects. According to some sources, Phoenician developed into distinct Tyro-Sidonian and Byblian dialects. By this account,
4080-450: The name "Phoenician" was first given to the language by Samuel Bochart in his Geographia Sacra seu Phaleg et Canaan . The Phoenicians were the first state-level society to make extensive use of the Semitic alphabet . The Phoenician alphabet is one of the oldest verified consonantal alphabet, or abjad . It has become conventional to refer to the script as "Proto-Canaanite" until
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#17328810470574160-415: The natural strength of its position. The important status of Motya led Dionysius I of Syracuse in 398 BC to invade Carthaginian territory in Sicily. The Motyans, supported by Carthage, made preparations for vigorous resistance and, by cutting off the causeway which linked them to the mainland, compelled Dionysius to repair it or build a new causeway. When the military engines of Dionysius (among which
4240-434: The ones: 𐤏𐤔𐤓𐤌/𐤏𐤎𐤓𐤌 ʻsrm/ʻšrm , 𐤔𐤋𐤔𐤌 šlšm , 𐤀𐤓𐤁𐤏𐤌 ʼrbʻm , 𐤇𐤌𐤔𐤌 ḥmšm , 𐤔𐤔𐤌 ššm , 𐤔𐤁𐤏𐤌 šbʻm , 𐤔𐤌𐤍𐤌 šmnm , 𐤕𐤔𐤏𐤌 tšʻm . "One hundred" is 𐤌𐤀𐤕 mʼt , two hundred is its dual form 𐤌𐤀𐤕𐤌 mʼtm , whereas the rest are formed as in 𐤔𐤋𐤔 𐤌𐤀𐤕 šlš mʼt (three hundred). One thousand is 𐤀𐤋𐤐 ʼlp . Ordinal numerals are formed by
4320-451: The past tense, is exemplified below with the root 𐤐𐤏𐤋 p-ʻ-l "to do" (a "neutral", G-stem). Singular: Plural: The imperfect or prefix-conjugation, which expresses the present and future tense (and which is not distinguishable from the descendant of the Proto-Semitic jussive expressing wishes), is exemplified below, again with the root p-ʻ-l . Plural: The imperative endings were presumably /-∅/ , /-ī/ and /-ū/ for
4400-505: The phonetic values of the sibilants, see below. These latter developments also occurred in Biblical Hebrew at one point or another, except that *ś merged into *s there. The original value of the Proto-Semitic sibilants, and accordingly of their Phoenician counterparts, is disputed. While the traditional sound values are [ʃ] for š , [s] for s , [z] for z , and [sˤ] for ṣ , recent scholarship argues that š
4480-566: The present data. The non-finite forms are the infinitive construct, the infinitive absolute and the active and passive participles. In the G-stem, the infinitive construct is usually combined with the preposition 𐤋 l- "to", as in 𐤋𐤐𐤏𐤋 /lipʻul/ "to do"; in contrast, the infinitive absolute 𐤐𐤏𐤋 (paʻōl) is mostly used to strengthen the meaning of a subsequent finite verb with the same root: 𐤐𐤕𐤇 𐤕𐤐𐤕𐤇 ptḥ tptḥ "you will indeed open!", accordingly /𐤐𐤏𐤋 𐤕𐤐𐤏𐤋 *paʻōl tipʻul / "you will indeed do!". The participles had, in
4560-537: The queen" or 𐤀𐤇𐤌𐤋𐤊𐤕 ʼḥmlkt "brother of the queen" rendered in Latin as HIMILCO. /n/ was also assimilated to following consonants: e.g. 𐤔𐤕 št "year" for earlier 𐤔𐤍𐤕 */sant/ . The case endings in general must have been lost between the 9th century BC and the 7th century BC: the personal name rendered in Akkadian as ma-ti-nu-ba-[ʼ] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) a-li "Gift of Baal ", with
4640-824: The reconstructed pronunciations of the personal pronouns are as follows: Singular: 1st: / ʼanōkī / 𐤀𐤍𐤊 ʼnk (Punic sometimes 𐤀𐤍𐤊𐤉 ʼnky ), also attested as / ʼanek / 2nd masc. / ʼatta(ː) / 𐤀𐤕 ʼt 2nd fem. / ʼatti(ː) / 𐤀𐤕 ʼt 3rd masc. / huʼa / 𐤄𐤀 hʼ , also [ hy ] (?) 𐤄𐤉 hy and / huʼat / 𐤄𐤀𐤕 hʼt 3rd fem. / hiʼa / 𐤄𐤀 hʼ Plural: 1st: / ʼanaḥnū / 𐤀𐤍𐤇𐤍 ʼnḥn 2nd masc. / ʾattim / 𐤀𐤕𐤌 ʼtm 2nd fem. unattested, perhaps / ʾattin / 𐤀𐤕𐤍 ʼtn 3rd masc. and feminine / himūt / 𐤄𐤌𐤕 hmt Enclitic personal pronouns were added to nouns (to encode possession) and to prepositions, as shown below for "Standard Phoenician" (the predominant dialect, as distinct from
4720-500: The region surrounding the cities of Tyre and Sidon . Extensive Tyro-Sidonian trade and commercial dominance led to Phoenician becoming a lingua franca of the maritime Mediterranean during the Iron Age . The Phoenician alphabet spread to Greece during this period, where it became the source of all modern European scripts . Phoenician belongs to the Canaanite languages and as such
4800-422: The remains of the ancient city. The island is nearly 850 m (2,790 ft) long and 750 m (2,460 ft) wide, and about 1 km (0.62 mi) (six stadia ) from the mainland of Sicily. It was joined to the mainland in ancient times by a causeway , over which chariots with large wheels could reach the town. The confined space on which the city was built agrees with the description of Diodorus that
4880-425: The same in both cases, i.e. / -nōm / 𐤍𐤌 nm and / -nēm / 𐤍𐤌 nm . These enclitic forms vary between the dialects. In the archaic Byblian dialect, the third person forms are 𐤄 h and 𐤅 w / -ō / for the masculine singular (a.V. 𐤅 w / -ēw /), 𐤄 h / -aha(ː) / for the feminine singular and 𐤅𐤌 hm / -hum(ma) / for the masculine plural. In late Punic, the 3rd masculine singular
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#17328810470574960-403: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title MTW . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MTW&oldid=1230974199 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
5040-506: The same written forms of the enclitics that are attested after vowels are also found after a singular noun in what must have been the genitive case (which ended in /-i/ , whereas the plural version ended in /-ē/ ). Their pronunciation can then be reconstructed somewhat differently: first-person singular / -iya(ː) / 𐤉 y , third-person singular masculine and feminine / -iyu(ː) / 𐤉 y and / -iya(ː) / 𐤉 y . The third-person plural singular and feminine must have pronounced
5120-435: The second-person singular masculine, second-person singular feminine and second-person plural masculine respectively, but all three forms surface in the orthography as / puʻul / 𐤐𐤏𐤋 pʻl : [-∅] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) . The old Semitic jussive, which originally differed slightly from the prefix conjugation, is no longer possible to separate from it in Phoenician with
5200-484: The singular, a masculine zn [zan] / z [za] from a feminine 𐤆𐤕 zt [zuːt] / 𐤆𐤀 zʼ [zuː]. There are also many variations in Punic, including 𐤎𐤕 st [suːt] and 𐤆𐤕 zt [zuːt] for both genders in the singular. The far demonstrative pronouns ("that") are identical to the independent third-person pronouns. The interrogative pronouns are /miya/ or perhaps /mi/ 𐤌𐤉 my "who" and /muː/ 𐤌 m "what". Indefinite pronouns are "anything"
5280-429: The site of the later Kothon was a natural spring-fed pool with a block-lined side. The Kothon was rebuilt as a monumental pool with the rest of the city between 550-520 BC after the destruction of the city by the Carthaginians. The Kothon had a platform in the centre as a base for a statue of the Phoenician god Baʿal. Only after the destruction of the city in 397/6 BC was a section of the nearby city wall dismantled and
5360-546: The time of the Second Punic War , an even more cursive form began to develop, which gave rise to a variety referred to as Neo-Punic and existed alongside the more conservative form and became predominant some time after the destruction of Carthage (c. 149 BC) . Neo-Punic, in turn, tended to designate vowels with matres lectionis ("consonantal letters") more frequently than the previous systems had and also began to systematically use different letters for different vowels, in
5440-401: The verbs 𐤊𐤍 kn "to be" vs Arabic كون kwn , 𐤌𐤕 mt "to die" vs Hebrew and Arabic מות/موت mwt and 𐤎𐤓 sr "to remove" vs Hebrew סרר srr . Nouns are marked for gender (masculine and feminine), number (singular, plural and vestiges of the dual) and state (absolute and construct, the latter being nouns that are followed by their possessors) and also have the category definiteness. There
5520-399: The war of Syracuse 's tyrant Dionysios I against Carthage is a major event in the 1965 historical novel The Arrows of Hercules by L. Sprague de Camp . Phoenician language Phoenician ( / f ə ˈ n iː ʃ ən / fə- NEE -shən ; Phoenician: śpt knʿn lit. ' language of Canaan ' ) is an extinct Canaanite Semitic language originally spoken in
5600-724: The way explained in more detail below. Finally, a number of late inscriptions from what is now Constantine, Algeria dated to the first century BC make use of the Greek alphabet to write Punic, and many inscriptions from Tripolitania , in the third and fourth centuries AD use the Latin alphabet for that purpose. In Phoenician writing, unlike that of abjads such as those of Aramaic, Biblical Hebrew and Arabic, even long vowels remained generally unexpressed, regardless of their origin (even if they originated from diphthongs, as in bt /beːt/ 'house', for earlier *bayt- ; Hebrew spelling has byt ). Eventually, Punic writers began to implement systems of marking of vowels by means of matres lectionis . In
5680-405: The weakening and coalescence of the gutturals. Much as in Biblical Hebrew, the initial consonant of the article is dropped after the prepositions 𐤁 b- , 𐤋 l- and 𐤊 k- ; it could also be lost after various other particles and function words, such the direct object marker 𐤀𐤉𐤕 ʼyt and the conjunction 𐤅 w- "and". Of the cardinal numerals from 1 to 10, 1 is an adjective, 2 is formally
5760-445: The whole population, men, women, and children, to the sword. Dionysus garrisoned it under an officer named Biton, while his brother Leptines of Syracuse made it the base of his fleet. But the next spring (396 BC) Himilcon , the Carthaginian general, having landed at Panormus with a large force, recovered possession of Motya with comparatively little difficulty. Motya was not destined to recover its former importance for Himilcon
5840-469: The word for "eternity" is known from Greek transcriptions to have been ūlōm/ουλομ 𐤏𐤋𐤌 /ʕuːˈloːm/, corresponding to Biblical Hebrew ʻōlām עולם /ʕoːlɔːm/ and Proto-Semitic ʻālam /ˈʕaːlam/ (in Arabic: ʻālam عالم /ˈʕaːlam/). The letter Y used for words such as 𐤀𐤔 /ʔəʃ/ ys/υς "which" and 𐤀𐤕 /ʔət/ yth/υθ (definite accusative marker) in Greek and Latin alphabet inscriptions can be interpreted as denoting
5920-417: Was [s] , s was [ts] , z was [dz] , and ṣ was [tsʼ] , as transcribed in the consonant table above. Krahmalkov, too, suggests that Phoenician *z may have been [dz] or even [zd] based on Latin transcriptions such as esde for the demonstrative 𐤅 z. On the other hand, it is debated whether šīn [REDACTED] and sāmek [REDACTED] , which are mostly well distinguished by
6000-695: Was lowered to [e] and was also lengthened if it was accented. Stress-dependent vowel changes indicate that stress was probably mostly final, as in Biblical Hebrew. Long vowels probably occurred only in open syllables. As is typical for the Semitic languages, Phoenician words are usually built around consonantal roots and vowel changes are used extensively to express morphological distinctions. However, unlike most Semitic languages, Phoenician preserved (or, possibly, re-introduced) numerous uniconsonantal and biconsonantal roots seen in Proto-Afro-Asiatic : compare
6080-450: Was originally merely a commercial station or emporium, but gradually rose to be a flourishing and important town. The Phoenicians transformed the inhospitable island into one of the most affluent cities of its time, naturally defended by the lagoon . By 650 BC the settlement had grown into a busy port-city with maritime trade extending to the central and western Mediterranean. This prosperity caused rivalry with powerful Carthage nearby on
6160-399: Was slightly bigger than an Olympic-sized swimming pool, was carved into the rock with a maximum depth of 2.5 metres (8 ft). Although thought at one time to be a harbour, in ancient times sea level was about 1 metre (3 ft) lower than today (which is also shown by the depth the causeway to the island) and entry of large ships into the basin would have been impossible. Instead it is
6240-449: Was struck with the superior advantages of the promontory of Lilybaeum and founded a new city there to which he transferred the few remaining inhabitants of Motya. From this period Motya disappears from documented history. Although we have no account of Motya having received any Greek population or having fallen into the hands of the Greeks before its conquest by Dionysius, there exist coins of
6320-463: Was used first with foreign words and was then extended to many native words as well. A third practice reported in the literature is the use of the consonantal letters for vowels in the same way as had occurred in the original adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet to Greek and Latin, which was apparently still transparent to Punic writers: hē [REDACTED] for [e] and 'ālep [REDACTED] for [a] . Later, Punic inscriptions began to be written in
6400-647: Was written with the Phoenician script, an abjad (consonantary) originating from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet that also became the basis for the Greek alphabet and, via an Etruscan adaptation, the Latin alphabet . The Punic form of the script gradually developed somewhat different and more cursive letter shapes; in the 3rd century BC, it also began to exhibit a tendency to mark the presence of vowels, especially final vowels, with an aleph or sometimes an ayin . Furthermore, around
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