Funerary Stele of Si-Gabbor, Priest of the Moon God
Unknown · Late seventh century BC
A basalt stele with a rounded top, nearly a metre high, showing a funerary banquet. A priest sits on a stool in a fringed robe that leaves his right shoulder bare and raises a cup before a table piled with offerings; behind him a servant in a short tunic waves a fan to keep him cool. The background has been cut away so that the figures stand out flat, a method called champlevé. Above and around the scene, an Aramaic inscription names the dead man as Si-Gabbor, priest of Sahar, the moon god, at Neirab.
The stele was found at Neirab, near Aleppo, together with a second stele of another priest of the moon god, and the Louvre purchased the pair in eighteen ninety-seven. The inscription is a small autobiography: Si-Gabbor says that on the day he died his mouth was not closed to words, that he saw his children to the fourth generation, and that he was buried without silver or bronze, only in his clothes, so that no one should plunder his tomb. It ends with a curse on anyone who disturbs him, and it is one of the most personal voices to survive from Iron Age Syria.
Did You Know? Si-Gabbor's epitaph says he was buried with no silver or bronze, only his clothes, so that robbers would leave his tomb alone.
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