Kuttamuwa stele

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The Kuttamuwa stele is a large basalt stone from the Iron Age. It weighs about 800 pounds and measures roughly 3 by 2 feet. Dating to the 8th century BCE, it comes from Sam’al, an ancient city in what is now southeastern Turkey. The stele bears an inscription in Aramaic made for Kuttamuwa, a royal official who wanted to be remembered after his death and had the stele created while he was still alive.

In 2008, the Neubauer Expedition of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago discovered the stele in Sam’al. It is now housed in the Gaziantep Museum of Archaeology.

The inscription shows that Kuttamuwa asked mourners to honor his life and his “soul” that would be inside the stele with yearly feasts. This is one of the earliest Near Eastern references to a soul as a separate entity from the body. A simplified translation notes that Kuttamuwa, servant of Panamuwa, made the stele for himself, set up a feast in an eternal chamber with offerings to gods and to his soul, and told heirs to keep giving the best produce each year and perform a slaughter near his soul.