Tyre, inscriptions

Tyre (Phoenician צר, ṣūr, "rock"; Greek Τύρος; Latin Tyrus): port in Phoenicia and one of the main cities in the eastern Mediterranean.

Inscripton for a boxer

On several places in the city of Tyre, inscriptions can be seen. The first inscription commemorates a successful boxer, and can today be found at the end of the Mosaic Road.

Given the importance of Tyre as the capital of Syria Phoenice, we would actually have expected to find more inscriptions - in Latin, Greek, and perhaps Aramaic - but new excavations may bring additional texts. Below are some Latin examples, to be seen near the Square Building; click on them for the texts.

The first one (known as AE 1995, 1569) records the career of one Publius Valerius Protogenianus, officer in three named units. On the other side of this prism (known as AE 2006, 1587; second photo) is a dedication to the emperor Diocletian by a governor named Lucius Artorius Pius Maximus.

The second prism (AE 2006, 1597; third photo) was erected by a speculator, a Roman agent at a foreign court, named Lucius Aemilius Antoninus, who commemorated a woman whose father had been a consul, probably wife. Finally, the fourth photo is a milestone from the age of the emperor Philip the Arab (r.244-249).