Editing Pyrgi Tablets (section)

=== Translation variants ===
The [[Phoenician language|Phoenician]] text has long been known to be in a [[Semitic languages|Semitic]], more specifically a [[Canaanite languages|Canaanite language]] (specifically North Canaanite; South Canaanite dialects include [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], Moabite, and Edomite); hence there was no need for it to be "deciphered".  And while most of the inscription can certainly reliably be read, certain passages are philologically uncertain on account of perceived complications of syntax and the vocabulary employed in the inscription, and as such they have become the source of debate among both Semiticists and classicists.<ref>For a relatively recent analysis of the inscription and summary of the various scholarly interpretations, see [https://www.jstor.org/stable/604727 Schmitz, P. 1995 "The Phoenician Text from the Etruscan Sanctuary at Pyrgi." ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' 15:559–575].</ref>

For example, other translations of the final line, besides that cited above, include: "And I made a duplicate of the statue of the goddess <Astarte> in her temple as do the Kakkabites [?Carthaginians]"; and "As for the red robe of the statues of the goddess <Astarte> in her temple, her/its red robe is like a those of the gods of the Kakkabites [Carthaginians]" (both of these from Krahmalkov's Phoenician-Punic Dictionary).<ref>Krahmalkov, C. R. ''Phoenician-Punic Dictionary'' Leuven, 2000. pp. 230, 475</ref> Further, In Schmidtz's 2016 treatment of the text, he reinterprets the string ''bmtnʼ bbt'' (translated above and commonly as "as an offering in the temple") as ''bmt n' bbt'' to mean "at the death of (the) Handsome (one) [=Adonis]."<ref>Schmidtz, Philip Ch. " ''Sempre Pyrgi'': A retraction and a Reassessment of the Phoenician Text" in ''Le lamine di Pyrgi: Nuovi studi sulle iscizione in etrusco e in fenicio nel cinquantenario della scoperta'' eds. Vincenzo Bellelli and Paolo Xella. Verona, 2016. pp. 33–43</ref>