â®ï­Ö·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â TarÅ¡Ä«Å¡âAmber

Ephraim S. Ayil

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ChapterÂ 12 â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â TarÅ¡Ä«Å¡âAmber

In: Identifying the Stones of Classical Hebrew

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Ephraim S. Ayil

Ephraim S. Ayil
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Pages:: 101â111

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004678002_013

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TarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ is particularly notable because it appears in contexts far beyond the Priestly Breastplate. Because Tartessos, the ancient name for the area approximately equivalent to Andalusia, is also rendered as â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ in Hebrew, philologists ancient and modern alike have assumed that this stone must have come from Andalusia. But textual evidence from the Bible which narrows the identity â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ to a single stone implicates this reasoning as mistaken. Archeogemological evidence will indicate the identity and origin of tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone, and four distinct but etymologically related meanings for the Hebrew word â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ will be unraveled.

There is no gemstone called â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ or anything related to it outside of Hebrew. Without cognates, it is difficult to determine the identity of â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the word â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ has been etymologized in at least four distinct ways in the previous literature. Because â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ does not have a cognate in any other ancient language, it is most likely to be a case of internal development. The Septuagint Pentateuch translates tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone as ÏÏÏÏá½¹Î»Î¹Î¸Î¿Ï chrysolithos (literally, âgold stoneâ), which contemporary scholars struggle to identify. Older literature translates ÏÏÏÏá½¹Î»Î¹Î¸Î¿Ï chrysolithos as topaz, but Von Heinrich Quiring¹ and Harrell² note that topaz was unknown in antiquity, and therefore ÏÏÏÏá½¹Î»Î¹Î¸Î¿Ï chrysolithos must be citrine. Reasoning along the same lines, Thoresen³ prefers hessonite. But neither citrine⁴ nor hessonite⁵ were known in the ancient Levant prior to the Roman period. Daniel 10:6, Ezekiel 1:16, and Song of Songs 5:14 transliterate â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ into Greek as Î¸Î±ÏÏÎ¹Ï tharsis, indicating uncertainty as to this stoneâs identity.

1 Internal Evidence for the Color of TarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-Stone

There is an important clue to the identity of tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone in the biblical text itself. At the end of the Hebrew Bible, the text hints at the color of â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡. Daniel 10:5â6 provides evidence that indicates that â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ is a luminous and warm-colored stone:

â®×Ö¸×Ö¶ï¬Ö¸Ö¤× ×Ö¶×ªÖ¾×¢Öµ×× Ö·×Ö ×Ö¸×ÖµÖ×¨Ö¶× ×Ö°×Ö´ïÖµÖ¥× ×Ö´×ï¬ªÖ¾×Ö¶×Ö¸Ö× ×Ö¸×Ö£ï¬µï¬ª ï¬±Ö·ï¬³Ö´Ö×× ï¬µ×Ö¸×ªÖ°× Ö¸Ö¥×× ×Ö²×Ö»×¨Ö´Ö×× ï¬±Ö°×Ö¶Ö¥×ªÖ¶× ×ï¬µ×¤Ö¸Ö½×â¬â

I looked and saw a man dressed in linen, his loins girded with gold (â®ï¬»Ö¶×ªÖ¶×â¬â) of Uphaz.

â®ï¬µ×Ö°×Ö´ï¬¹Ö¸×ªÖ£×Ö¹ ×Ö°×ªÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´Ö×ï¬ª ï¬µ×¤Ö¸× Ö¸Ö×× ï¬»Ö°×Ö·×¨Ö°×ÖµÖ¤× ×Ö¸×¨Ö¸×§Ö ×Ö°×¢Öµ×× Ö¸××Ö ï¬»Ö°×Ö·ïÖ´Ö£××Öµ× ×ÖµÖï¬ª ï¬µ×Ö°×¨Ö¹Ö½×¢Ö¹×ªÖ¸××Ö ï¬µ×Ö·×¨Ö°ï¬²Ö°×Ö¹×ªÖ¸Ö×× ï¬»Ö°×¢ÖµÖ×× × Ö°×Ö¹Ö£ï¬ªÖ¶×ª ×§Ö¸×Ö¸Ö× ×Ö°×§Ö¥×Ö¹× ï¬³Ö°×Ö¸×¨Ö¸Ö×× ï¬»Ö°×§Ö¥×Ö¹× ×Ö¸×Ö½×Ö¹×â¬â

His body was like tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ (â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â), his face had the appearance of lightning (â®ï¬±Ö¸×¨Ö¸×§â¬â), his eyes were like torches of fire (â®×Ö·ïÖ´××Öµ× ×Öµï¬ªâ¬â), his arms and legs had the color of burnished bronze (â®× Ö°×Ö¹ï¬ªÖ¶×ªâ¬â), and the sound of his speech was like the noise of a multitude.

The four other concrete nouns describing the flesh of this âmanâ all emit (or reflect, in the case of gold) light and exhibit a yellow-orange color: gold (â®ï¬»Ö¶×ªÖ¶×â¬â ketÌ em), lightning (â®ï¬±Ö¸×¨Ö¸×§â¬â bÄrÄá¸³), fire (â®×Öµï¬ªâ¬â ÊÄÅ¡), and bronze (â®× Ö°×Ö¹ï¬ªÖ¶×ªâ¬â nÉá¸¥ÅÅ¡etÌ ). Extrapolating from this series of entities, tarsÌÄ«sÌ must be a luminous and warm-colored (red-orange-yellow) stone.

2 TarsÌÄ«sÌ = Tartessos = A Stone from Tartessos

Most scholars connect â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone with â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â TarÅ¡Ä«Å¡, a locale mentioned throughout the Hebrew Bible which became confused over time. In recent years, â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ has been securely demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt to be located in modern-day southern-Iberia,⁶ now called Andalusia. One piece of textual-archeological evidence is particularly illuminating in this regard. Ezekiel 27:12 (lived 7thâ6th centuries BCE) records that Tyre traded with TarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ for silver, but laments the end of the Tartessian silver trade. Isotopic analysis of silver recovered from excavations demonstrates that Iberia was the primary source of silver until the latter half of the seventh centuryÂ BCE,⁷ matching Ezekielâs description.

â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â TarsÌÄ«sÌ is clearly related to Greek Î¤Î±ÏÏÎ·ÏÏá½¹Ï Tartessos, reflexes of a shared (but unattested) native name. Proto-Semitic *Î¸ and *s₁ developed into â®ï¬ªâ¬â and word-final geminates degeminate in Hebrew, so the native name of Tartessos must have been something like *TarÎ¸iss. The ending *-iss is similar to that of other Paleohispanic toponyms recorded in coin legends (AÅatis, Bilbilis, OÅoÅis, OtatiiÅ, and Segobris).⁸ It is unreasonable to search for a Semitic etymology, as does Albright (allegedly loaned from Akkadian *raÅ¡ÄÅ¡u âto smelt, refineâ⁹). The earliest references in Greek sources to Î¤Î±ÏÏÎ·ÏÏá½¹Ï Tartessos describe it as a one location among several in what is now Spain-Portugal, along with the Mastienoi/Mastianoi and Iberia. It is not clear if Î¤Î±ÏÏÎ·ÏÏá½¹Ï Tartessos originally referred to an ethnicity, which became applied to the country.¹⁰ Little trace of the original ethnic nature of the Tartessians remains in biblical sources outside of the Table of Nations in Genesis. That this is the original meaning of â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ is apparent from the probable Tartessian origin of the name.

Having located â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â TarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ in southern Iberia, many Hebrew philologists have researched which species of (gem)stones are found in that area. This has a solid linguistic basis to it: precious stones are often named for the places from which they originate. Haupt suggests that tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone referred to âruby-like crystals of cinnabar from the quicksilver mines of Almaden in southern Spainâ¹¹ based on the provenance of cinnabar in the Roman world and the Septuagintal translation of ÏÏÏÏá½¹Î»Î¹Î¸Î¿Ï chrysolithos.¹² Whereas Pliny does mention that ÏÏÏÏá½¹Î»Î¹Î¸Î¿Ï chrysolithos imparts on gold a silvery color,¹³ that is due to the contrast between gold and the even deeper color of peridot, the true identity of ÏÏÏÏá½¹Î»Î¹Î¸Î¿Ï chrysolithos. Î§ÏÏÏá½¹Î»Î¹Î¸Î¿Ï chrysolithos never referred to cinnabar, and cinnabar has never been used as a precious stone. The primary use of cinnabar in the ancient world was as a pigment, and its first known usage in Israel was found in Roman-era site in this capacity.¹⁴

Tartessos was known in ancient times for its metal ores.¹⁵ Of particular interest is the Iberian Pyrite Belt along southern Spain, which produces attractive specimens of pyrite (FeS₂) and chalcopyrite (CuFeS₂). Assuming that tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone must come from Tartessos, Noonan¹⁶ offers two possibilities as to the identity of tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone. Based on the availability of pyrite, Noonan offers pyrite as one possibility. Pyrite was well known to the Mesopotamians under the name ^NA4pindar. Pyrite and related ores were melted for their metal content or used to light fire, but were not valued as a precious stone in the bronze age. This was probably due to a number of issues, including the reactivity of the ores, fragility and the corresponding difficulty in engraving. As an alternative, he suggests âchrysoliteâ, but it is not clear which gemstone he has in mind.¹⁷ The mines of the Iberian Pyrite Belt may also produce attractive blue-green salts, as the presence of iron and copper ores would imply. Tartessos was not known as a source of gemstones in the ancient world, which makes this line of reasoning difficult.

3 Applying the Philological Method

Not all scholars connect tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone with Tartessos. Based on the color suggested in Daniel, Harrell et al.¹⁸ suggested a novel etymology, seeing an Akkadian verb raÅ¡ÄÅ¡u in tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡. RaÅ¡ÄÅ¡u and the words derived from it are used in Akkadian texts to describe the appearance of gold, bronze, divine garments, royal/divine radiance, (rarely) beer, pigs, and urine. They prefer to identify tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone with amber, based on the color implied in Daniel, the color implied from their etymology, and by positing metathesis with the Septuagintâs translation for â®×Ö¶ï¬ªÖ¶×â¬â leÅ¡em, Î»Î¹Î³á½»ÏÎ¹Î¿Î½ ligyrion âamberâ. Meyers¹⁹ adopts this etymology, and by misreading the last phrase in Ezekiel 10:9 as âlike the stone eye of tarshishâ,²⁰ concludes that tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ is tigerâs eye. Beyond the strained reading required to justify this identification, tigerâs eye is not found in the Levant, and was unknown in antiquity. Though its origin in Europe is obscure, tigerâs eye became abundant in the 1880âs with the discovery of massive deposits in Griqualand West, South Africa.²¹

While the argument to derive tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone from the root r-Å¡-Å¡ is reasonable on semantic and phonological grounds, it is historically problematic. The root r-Å¡-Å¡ is only attested in Akkadian, as it was denominated from the Akkadian color term ruÅ¡Å¡È, which was itself loaned from Sumerian á¸«uÅ¡.a during the Middle Babylonian period.²² Whereas ruÅ¡Å¡È fits the color of tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone described in Daniel, because it is an Akkadian derivative of Sumerian, ruÅ¡Å¡È or raÅ¡ÄÅ¡u would be required either to have been loaned into Hebrew (either directly or through Aramaic) and used as the root in a t-preformative noun to form tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡, or a t-preformative noun be created in Akkadian from raÅ¡ÄÅ¡u to create **^NA4tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡, which would then be loaned into Hebrew. As the asterisk indicates, no such word exists in Akkadian. Thus, this etymology too strains credulity.

The evidence from Daniel as to what color tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ must be is more resolved. To be a possible identification for tarsÌÄ«sÌ, a gemstone must be luminous, warm-colored, known to the ancient Israelites, and not reliably linked to another stone on the Priestly Breastplate. This immediately rules out any blue-green metal salts from the Pyrite belt. As carnelian (â®×Ö¹×Ö¶×â¬â Ê¾Åá¸em), red jasper (â®×Ö·×Ö°×Ö¸×Ö¸×â¬â Ê¾aá¸¥lÄmÄ), and garnet (â®ï¬»Ö·×Ö°ï¬»Ö¹×â¬â kadÌ kÅdÌ and â®×Ö¶×§Ö°ï¬³Ö¸×â¬â Ê¾eá¸³dÄá¸¥) are already identified with other terms in Classical Hebrew, there is no red gemstone left to identify with tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡. Topaz²³ and tigerâs eye were undiscovered in antiquity, and neither citrine²⁴ nor hessonite²⁵ were known in the Levant prior to the Roman period. There is calcite that occurs in yellows and oranges in Israel, but there is no evidence that these were used as a gemstone. Likewise, pyrite and chalcopyrite were known and used as ores, but not employed as gemstones.

As already mentioned, amber is the preferred identification of Harrell, et al.²⁶ Even though the proofs by which they came to their conclusion were slightly off, the suggestion that tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ intended amber is almost certainly correct on archeological grounds. Amber may not be an obvious identification as it was seldom used in antiquity to make seals because it is soft and would quickly abrade given typical use (gem-quality amber has a variable Mohs scratch hardness ranging between 1 and 3). However, there is a crucial detail: although the gemstones on the breastplate were engraved like seals, they werenât actually used for sealing, so the fragility of amber is irrelevant.²⁷ It may not be the only one, there are three possible amber seals known from Mycenaean Greece,²⁸ perhaps intended for a cultic function. No other stone fits the criteria of tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡, and no other word has been plausibly linked with amber despite its ubiquity in the Late Bronze Age Levant.

A cornucopia of ancient words for amber are recorded in Pliny.²⁹ Of particular interest is the (Late) Egyptian term sacal, a Latin transliteration of the Egyptian word Å¡kl, which referred to a resin used in a medicinal ointment. Deriving this term from the endonym of the Sicilians³⁰ (the Sea People group called the Å ê¢krwÅ¡ê¢ê¢ in Egyptian texts) is clever, but is impeded by the fact that Egypt did not acquire their amber from Sicily. Rather, Egyptian Å¡kl must be borrowed from Akkadian ^NA4sankallu/sagkallu, in turn borrowed from Sumerian ^NA4saÅkal âamberâ. Sumerian ^NA4saÅkal has a transparent Sumerian etymology, a conjunction of saÅ âhead, person, capitalâ + gal âgreatâ, thus âpreeminent stoneâ. It is important to add that saÅkal is mentioned in the Amarna letters as a tribute item given from Mitanni to Egypt.³¹ Hittite ^NA4á¸«uÅ¡t(i)- may also refer to âamberâ, a blend of PIE *h₂us-t- and *h₂euÌ¯s-t- meaning *âgoldnessâ. Hittite ^NA4á¸«uÅ¡t(i)- was loaned into Hurrian.³²

Amber is not considered a single mineral by geologists, but a catch-all for solidified fossilized resins.³³ Two forms of amber are known from archeological excavations in the Levant, which indicate that amber was well-known to Bronze Age Semites. The first is the native Lebanese amber, which is quite poor in quality and seldom used for jewelry today. It was minimally exploited for jewelry in antiquity. The second and far more important form of amber is Baltic amber, which is archaeologically abundant in the late second-first millennium BCE Levant³⁴ and was used more extensively in jewelry. The provenance of Baltic amber (namely, the Baltic Sea) necessitates that this stone must have been transported from the Baltics to Israel. Hebrew â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ is entirely unrelated to Sumerian ^NA4saÅkal and Hittite ^NA4á¸«uÅ¡t(i)-, the two ancient culturewords for amber. The linguistic origin and textual references to Sumerian ^NA4saÅkal and Hittite ^NA4á¸«uÅ¡t(i)- concentrate around the source of Lebanese amber, namely Lebanon to southwestern Syria.

In the Levant, imported Baltic amber began to displace native Lebanese amber³⁵ starting in the 14th centuryÂ BCE. In The Odyssey,³⁶ Homer implies that the Phoenicians were the intermediary in the pan-Mediterranean amber trade. This claim is supported by the discovery of amber in the cargo hold of a sunk Phoenician vessel,³⁷ but it is unclear whether this is Baltic amber or Lebanese amber. Baltic amber appears in southern Iberia in the 12th centuryÂ BCE first at coastal sites, evidencing nautical trade.³⁸ Based on accumulating archaeological evidence from around the Mediterranean, Monroe³⁹ argues that the Phoenician expansion began in the 13th centuryÂ BCE. The importance of this timeline cannot be understated. Thus it would appear that the emergence of the Phoenician trade ignited amber trade across the Mediterranean rim. The Hebrew innovation of â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ âamberâ would thus seem to coincide geographically and chronologically with the displacement of Lebanese amber in favor of Baltic amber in the Levant.

Baltic amber was exchanged among prehistoric European peoples from the Balkans towards southern European trading centers in Sicily, Italy, and Greece in what has been termed âthe amber roadâ. From these ports, Mycenaean (prior to the Bronze Age collapse) and later, Phoenician merchants would acquire Baltic amber, trading it along Mediterranean ports from Spain to Israel. To reach distant ports, the Phoenicians constructed massive ships for sailing through the Mediterranean and even into the Atlantic. The term for these ships has never been found in a Phoenician text, but does occur in the Hebrew Bible. Iâ¯Kings 9â10 describes a joint Tyrian-Israelite voyage to â®××Ö¹×¤Ö´××¨â¬â âAfricaâ⁴⁰ on an â®×Ö³× Ö´× ×ªÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â Ê¾ÇnÄ« á¹¯arÅ¡Ä«Å¡ (literally, âa fleet of Tarshishâ).⁴¹ It is clear from the Hebrew Bible that the Israelites were not experts in international sailing, as they required assistance from the Tyrians to construct and man the voyage.

Placing the construction â®×Ö³× Ö´ï¬¹Ö¸× ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â Ê¾ÇniyyÄ tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ into its ancient Levantine context, Beitzel⁴² noted that the construction ship + [toponym] always âoriginally designated either the destination point or the provenance of the respective vesselsâ. The biblical text does not describe the fleet going to or from Tartessos, rather to â®××Ö¹×¤Ö´××¨â¬â âAfricaâ. He observed that the construction ship + [toponym] frequently developed in meaning beyond the original geographical destination or provenance in the name, citing no less than five cases of this semantic expansion.⁴³ The Phoenicians constructed large oceanic vessels for engaging in international Mediterranean commerce, exploring southern Iberia and eventually establishing a colony in Tartessos. Perhaps the first or most prominent destination was Tartessosâthat information is now lost, but the term â®×Ö³× Ö´ï¬¹Ö¸× ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â Ê¾ÇniyyÄ tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ âship of Tartessosâ appears to have shifted from the destination of the ship to the type of ship, namely an oceanic vessel. Thus, the Classical Hebrew term for an oceanic vessel is â®×Ö³× Ö´ï¬¹Ö¸× ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â Ê¾ÇniyyÄ tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡.

This must be understood from the perspective of the lexical corpus. Classical Hebrew uses â®×Ö¸×â¬â in construction to mean âof the seaâ, yet it otherwise lacked a specialized adjective for âoceanic, nautical, maritimeâ. Speakers must have reinterpreted â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ to fill that semantic hole, first by reanalyzing â®×Ö³× Ö´ï¬¹Ö¸× ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â Ê¾ÇniyyÄ tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ as âship of Tartessosâ â âoceanic vesselâ, and then by stripping out â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ as an adjective meaning âoceanic, nautical, maritimeâ. There is a grammatical subtlety to the phrase â®×Ö³× Ö´ï¬¹Ö¸× ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â Ê¾ÇniyyÄ tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ unnoticed by previous authors. In order for â®×Ö³× Ö´ï¬¹Ö¸× ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â Ê¾ÇniyyÄ tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ to shift from âship of Tartessosâ (construct) to âoceanic ship (adjectival)â, â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ must have been reanalyzed as a feminine adjective to match â®×Ö³× Ö´ï¬¹Ö¸×â¬â Ê¾ÇniyyÄ, despite lacking any specific feminine marking. This is not a difficulty, it merely implies that â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ âoceanic (ship)â is an irregular adjective. This semantic development is supported by the ancient Jewish Sages, who understood â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ to refer to the ocean in certain contexts. In numerous places in the Aramaic Targums, the Sages translate â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ as Î¸á½±Î»Î±ÏÏÎ± thalassa âseaâ. This interpretation goes back further. The Septuagint to Isaiah 2:16 translates tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ as Î¸Î±Î»á½±ÏÏÎ·Ï thalasses âof the sea (genitive)â. Jerome personally studied under Jews scholars in Palestine, and he comments that âHebrew scholars maintain that tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ is the Hebrew word for âseaââ¯â.⁴⁴

This scenario even suggests an etymology for tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone. Canaanite-speakers (such as the Phoenicians and Israelites) first encountered jewelry-grade amber from Phoenician merchants, who traded amber around the Mediterranean in their â®×Ö³× Ö´ï¬¹×Ö¹×ª ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â Ê¾ÇniyyÅá¹¯ tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ âoceanic shipsâ. A syntactic quirk of Hebrew would enable speakers to apply the name of the ships from which amber was distributed to the stone itself. In Hebrew, a genitive phrase is only distinguishable from an adjectival phrase by context. It happens to be that the formation â®×Ö¶×Ö¶×â¬â Ê¾ebÌ en âstoneâ + [specific name] is quite regular in Classical Hebrew, especially for gemstones. While speakers may have uttered the genitive phrase â®×Ö¶×Ö¶× ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â Ê¾ebÌ en tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ with the intended meaning of âstone (from the) oceanic vesselâ, listeners unfamiliar with the maritime origin of amber may have reinterpreted the phrase to mean âtarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stoneâ, where tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ is the specific name of a type of stone. This was catalyzed by the fact that â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ âoceanic (ship)â was already feminine (as I established in the previous paragraph), which matched â®×Ö¶×Ö¶×â¬â Ê¾ebÌ en âstoneâ (also irregularly feminine).⁴⁵ Therefore, tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ appears a product of further reanalysis whereby a type of ship transformed into the name for amber.

4 Other Previous Views

Noting that ancient Jewish scholars identified one meaning of â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ as âoceanic, nautical, maritimeâ, Hoenig⁴⁶ went a step further by connecting â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ with Greek Î¸Î±Î»á½±ÏÏÎ·Ï thalasses âseaâ etymologically. But the resemblance is merely coincidental, the dissimilarity in the second syllable of these wordsâbetween -Å¡Ä«Å¡ and -Î±ÏÏÎ± -assaâcannot be overcome. Î¸Î±Î»á½±ÏÏÎ·Ï thalasses is very likely a âPre-Greekâ word literally meaning âplace of salt(water)â.⁴⁷ Taking the translation of â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ as âoceanicâ to be correct, it would be intuitive to assume that tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone resembles the ocean, implying a light-blue colored stone. While this explanation may be intuitive, tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone is unambiguously not blue in the Book of Daniel. But with the exception of the Septuagint and its derivative translations, ancient Jewish translators translated tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone with various species of blue stones. The Aramaic Targums translate tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone as â®××¨×× ×××â¬â krwm ymÊ¾ âsea-coloredâ or â®××¨××â¬â â®××× ×¨××â¬â krwm ymÊ¾ rbÊ¾ âMediterranian Sea-coloredâ, and likewise Symmachus as quoted in the Hexapla translates tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone as á½á½±ÎºÎ¹Î½Î¸Î¿Ï âpurple jadeâ.⁴⁸

There is another Classical Hebrew noun that the meaning âamberâ has been applied, albeit incorrectly: â®×Ö·ï¬ªÖ°×Ö·×â¬â á¸¥aÅ¡mal. While the equation predates him, Noonan maintains that â®×Ö·ï¬ªÖ°×Ö·×â¬â á¸¥aÅ¡mal equals amber because he incorrectly equates Hebrew â®×Ö·ï¬ªÖ°×Ö·×â¬â á¸¥aÅ¡mal with Akkadian elmÄÅ¡u, and finds false friends for Akkadian elmÄÅ¡u in Estonian helmes âbeadsâ (originally, âamberâ) and Livonian elâmaz, elâm.⁴⁹ Akkadian elmÄÅ¡u should actually be identified with â®×Ö·ï¬¼Ö¸×Ö´×ï¬ªâ¬â á¸¥allÄmÄ«Å¡ (as addressed in ChapterÂ 18). To etymologize Estonian helmes and Livonian elâmaz, elâm from a substrate word which was loaned into Semitic three millennia ago is too speculative a claim to make. The literature is divided as to whether â®×Ö·ï¬ªÖ°×Ö·×â¬â á¸¥aÅ¡mal referred to a stone or a metal, as the Septuagint translated â®×Ö·ï¬ªÖ°×Ö·×â¬â á¸¥aÅ¡mal with á¼¤Î»ÎµÎºÏÏÎ¿Î½ elektron, which referred to both the non-mineral gemstone amber and the alloy electrum. Typically in Classical Hebrew, lithonyms are preceded by the word â®×Ö¶×Ö¶×â¬â Ê¾ebÌ en âstoneâ. That â®×Ö·ï¬ªÖ°×Ö·×â¬â á¸¥aÅ¡mal is never preceded by â®×Ö¶×Ö¶×â¬â Ê¾ebÌ en âstoneâ weighs in favor of the metal-hypothesis. Noonan rejected â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ as âamberâ specifically on the basis that he equates amber with â®×Ö·ï¬ªÖ°×Ö·×â¬â á¸¥aÅ¡mal.⁵⁰ A hazard of philology is that a mistaken identification for one word may have multiple-order effects on the identification of others.

5 Conclusion

Based on the rich imagery in the Book of Daniel, â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ can only be identified with amber. The complicated semantic development of â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ in Classical Hebrew led to a complicated history of interpretation for tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone. The word perhaps originated as an ethnic group native to southern Iberia, which became the name of the country, and eventually the area itself. To reach this distant location, the Phoenicians constructed massive trading ships which they called â®×Ö³× Ö´ï¬¹×Ö¹×ª ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â Ê¾ÇniyyÅá¹¯ tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡. Sailing to southern European trading centers, they acquired Baltic amber which had been traded from peoples around the Baltic Sea. Canaanite speakers applied the word â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡ to Baltic amber, which was traded out of the â®×Ö³× Ö´ï¬¹×Ö¹×ª ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â Ê¾ÇniyyÅá¹¯ tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡.

Quiring, Heinrich. (1954). Die Edelsteine im Amtsschild des jÃ¼dischen Hohenpriesters und die Herkunft ihrer Namen. Sudhoffs Archiv fÃ¼r Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften, (H. 3), 193â213.

Harrell, JamesÂ A. (2011). Old Testament Gemstones: A philological, geological, and archaeological assessment of the Septuagint. Bulletin for Biblical Research, 21(2), 141â171.

Thoresen, Lisbet. (2017). Archaeogemmology and ancient literary sources on gems and their origins. In Gemstones in the First Millennium AD. Mines, trade, workshops and symbolism. Maguncia, Verlag des RÃ¶misch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums.

Harrell, JamesÂ A. (2012). Gemstones. UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 1.1.

Thoresen, ibid.

LÃ³pez-Ruiz, Carolina. (2009). âTarshish and Tartessos Revisited: Textual Problems and Historical Implications.â In: Colonial Encounters in Ancient Iberia: Phoenician, Greek, and Indigenous Relations.

Lipinski, Edward. (1988). Carthage et Tarshish. Bibliotheca orientalis, 45(1â2), 60â81.

Eshel, Tzilla, Erel, Yigal, Yahalom-Mack, Naama, Tirosh, Ofir, & Gilboa, Ayelet. (2022). From Iberia to Laurion: Interpreting Changes in Silver Supply to the Levant in the Late Iron Age Based on Lead Isotope Analysis. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 14(6), 120.

Noonan, Benjamin. J. (2019). Non-Semitic loanwords in the Hebrew Bible: A lexicon of language contact (Vol.Â 14). Penn State Press. PagesÂ 228â229.

Albright, WilliamÂ F. (1941). New light on the early history of Phoenician colonization. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 83(1), 14â22.

PÃ©rez, SebastiÃ¡n Celestino, & LÃ³pez-Ruiz, Carolina. (2016). Tartessos and the Phoenicians in Iberia. Oxford University Press. 26â30.

Haupt, Paul. (1907). Jonahâs Whale. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 46(185), 151â164.

Haupt, Paul. (1907). Biblische Liebeslieder. Leipzig. 59. (German).

Bostock, John, and Henry T.Â Riley. (1855). Pliny the Elder: The natural history. Perseus at Tufts. BookÂ 37, ChapterÂ 42.

Koren, ZviÂ C. (2014). Scientific study tour of ancient Israel. In Science History: A Travelerâs Guide (pp.Â 319â351). American Chemical Society.

Jurado, JesÃºs FernÃ¡ndez. (2002). The Tartessian economy: Mining and metallurgy. The Phoenicians in Spain, 241â262.

Noonan, Benjamin. J. (2019). Non-Semitic loanwords in the Hebrew Bible: A lexicon of language contact (Vol.Â 14). Penn State Press. PagesÂ 228â229.

Chrysolite is sometimes used to refer to yellowish olivines, which do not occur in Spain.

Harrell, JamesÂ E., James K.Â Hoffmeier, and Kenton F.Â Williams. âHebrew gemstones in the Old Testament: A lexical, geological, and archaeological analysis.â Bulletin for Biblical Research 27.1 (2017): 25.

Meyers, StephenÂ C (2021). Gemstones of Aaronâs Breastplate and the Urim & Thummim.

The Hebrew text here is â®ï¬µ×Ö·×¨Ö°×Öµ× ×Ö¸××Ö¹×¤Ö·ïÖ´×× ï¬»Ö°×¢Öµ×× ×Ö¶×Ö¶× ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â âand the appearence of the wheels, like the appearance of tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stoneâ.

Heaney, Peter J, & Fisher, DonaldÂ M. (2003). New interpretation of the origin of tigerâs-eye. Geology, 31(4), 323â326.

Thavapalan, Shiyanthi. (2019). The meaning of color in ancient Mesopotamia. Brill. PageÂ 122.

Harrell, JamesÂ A. (2011). Old Testament gemstones: A philological, geological, and archaeological assessment of the Septuagint. Bulletin for Biblical Research, 21(2), 141â171.

Harrell, JamesÂ A. (2012). Gemstones. UCLA encyclopedia of Egyptology, 1(1).

Harrell, JamesÂ A., James K.Â Hoffmeier, and Kenton F.Â Williams. (2017). Hebrew gemstones in the Old Testament: A lexical, geological, and archaeological analysis. Bulletin for Biblical Research, 27(1), 1â52.

Harrell, JamesÂ A. (2011). Old Testament gemstones: A philological, geological, and archaeological assessment of the Septuagint. Bulletin for Biblical Research, 21(2), 141â171.

Hughes, Konrad Bennett. (2020). Mycenaean Amber: Within the Exchange Network of Mercenaries and Metals.

Bostock, John, and Henry T.Â Riley. (1855). Pliny the Elder: The natural history. Perseus at Tufts. BookÂ 37, chapterÂ 11.

McKenny Hughes, Thomas. (1901). Amber. Archaeological Journal, 58(1), 35â46.

Singer, Graciela Noemi Gestoso. (2016). Amber exchange in the Late Bronze Age Levant in cross-cultural Perspective. In International Conference about the Ancient Roads in San Marino.

BlaÅ¾ek, VÃ¡clav. (2017). Indo-European âgoldâ in time and space. Journal of Indo-European Studies, 45(3/4), 267â311.

Vavra, Norbert. (2009). The chemistry of amber-facts, findings and opinions. Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien. Serie A fÃ¼r Mineralogie und Petrographie, Geologie und PalÃ¤ontologie, Anthropologie und PrÃ¤historie, 445â473.

Todd, Joan Markley. (1985). Baltic amber in the ancient Near East: a preliminary investigation. Journal of Baltic Studies, 16(3), 292â301.

Mukherjee,Â A.J., RoÃberger,Â E., James,Â M.A., PfÃ¤lzner,Â P., Higgitt,Â C.L., White,Â R., Peggie,Â D.A., Azar,Â D., Evershed,Â R. (2008). The Qatna lion: scientific confirmation of Baltic amber in late Bronze Age Syria. Antiquity 82, 49â59.

Homerâs Odyssey 15.460.

Poltzer, Mark E, & Pineto Reyes, Juan. (2007). Phoenicians in the West. The Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University, 57.

Murillo-Barroso,Â M., PeÃ±alver,Â E., Bueno,Â P., Barroso,Â R., de BalbÃn,Â R., & Martinon-Torres, M. (2018). Amber in prehistoric Iberia: New data and a review. Plos One, 13(8), e0202235.

Monroe, ChristopherÂ M. (2018). Marginalizing civilization: the Phoenician redefinition of power ca.Â 1300â800â¯BC. Trade and civilisation: Economic networks and cultural ties, from prehistory to the early Modern Era, 195â241.

LipiÅski, Edward. (2004). Itineraria phoenicia (Vol.Â 127). Peeters Publishers. ChapterÂ 6.

As will be made clear, the phrase â®×Ö³× Ö´× ×ªÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â Ê¾ÇnÄ« á¹¯arÅ¡Ä«Å¡ thus probably originated in Phoenician (which was fully mutually intelligible and hard to separate from Israelite Hebrew).

Beitzel, BarryÂ J. (2010). Was there a joint nautical venture on the Mediterranean Sea by Tyrian Phoenicians and early Israelites?. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 360(1), 37â66.

Ibid.

Gordon, CyrusÂ H. (1978). The wine-dark sea. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 37.1, 51â52.

The textual data is ambiguous towards this point as no verse indicates the gender of tarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-stone.

Hoenig, SidneyÂ B. (1979). Tarshish. The Jewish Quarterly Review, 69(3), 181â182.

Gordeziani, Rismag. âGreek Words of Unknown Etymology Denoting Sea.â PHASIS 12 (2009): 160â163.

The Identity of the á½á½±ÎºÎ¹Î½Î¸Î¿Ï Hyacinthos Stone, forthcoming.

Noonan, Benjamin. J. (2019). Non-Semitic loanwords in the Hebrew Bible: A lexicon of language contact (Vol.Â 14). Penn State Press. PagesÂ 106â107.

Ibid, footnote 662.

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Identifying the Stones of Classical Hebrew

A Modern Philological Approach

Series:Â Ancient Languages and Civilizations, Volume: 7

Cover Identifying the Stones of Classical Hebrew

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Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 16 Aug 2024

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ChapterÂ 12 â®ï­Ö·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â TarÅ¡Ä«Å¡âAmber

1 Internal Evidence for the Color of TarÅ¡Ä«Å¡-Stone

2 TarsÌÄ«sÌ = Tartessos = A Stone from Tartessos

3 Applying the Philological Method

4 Other Previous Views

5 Conclusion

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Identifying the Stones of Classical Hebrew

A Modern Philological Approach

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ChapterÂ 12 â®ïÖ·×¨Ö°ï¬ªÖ´×ï¬ªâ¬â TarÅ¡Ä«Å¡âAmber

2 TarsÌÄ«sÌ = Tartessos = A Stone from Tartessos