Pumayyaton and Pnytarion's inscriptions
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Through Marble
Pumayyaton inscription
The inscription mentioning Pumayyaton, king of Kition and Idalion, dedicates a statue in the 34th year of the king's reign:
The 34th year of Pumayyaton's reign, based on evidence concerning his rule over Tamassos, is c. 328 BC.
In the classical period, Phoenician dedications of statues were engraved on marble bases, but the statues themselves are now lost; only traces on the upper part of the bases can indicate weather the statue was made of marble or of bronze. The statue dedicated in this Phoenician inscription was a bronze statue, fixed to the base with three deep mortises.
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Pnytarion inscrition
After the base was turned upside down, a Greek inscription was engraved on it, from the end of the first century BC:
The dedication is made for a woman of an "old Cypriot family" allied to Hellenized Semites. Names formed with the component Πνυτ- (from πνυτός "advised") are common in Cyprus, both in syllabic and alphabetical inscriptions, but very rare outside Cyprus. The name of the grandfather, Sillis, is Semitic, and his son and grandson's name, Asclepiodoros, is Greek and correspond with their function as priests of Asclepius, translated to Semitic as Eshmun. The members of the family who held religious power also functioned as held the function of a gymnasiarch, linked to military power, and an agoranomos, attested twice in Kition and well-known from Salamis, which perhaps took over the Phoenician function of rb srsrm (chief of commercial agents) known from KAI 34 (one of the Kition necropolis inscriptions).
Sanctuaries for Eshmun and Asclepius?
The Greek inscription might indicate a preceding Phoenician temple to Eshmun in the provenance of the marble base. It can be seggested that the Phoenician inscription dedicated a statue to Eshmun in his temple in the Larnaca salt lake area (where stne veses mentioning Eshmun and dating to 4th century BC were found); although there is no evidence for identification between Eshmun and Asclepius in the classical period, it is likely that the same area served twice as the sanctuary for a medicine god. The Greek inscription affirms that the sanctuary of Asclepius (and Hygieia) was founded by Pnytarion's husband, so it is reasonable to assume that a Phoenician sanctuary for Eshmun was destroyed or fell into disuse, and refounded as a sanctuary dedicated to Asclepius and Hygieia.