Tabnit
Tabnit was the Phoenician king of Sidon circa 490 BCE, He was the father of King Eshmunazar II.
He is well known from his sarcophagus, decorated with two separate and unrelated inscriptions – one in Egyptian hieroglyphics and one in Phoenician script. It was created in the early 5th century BC, and was unearthed in 1887 by Osman Hamdi Bey at the Ayaa Necropolis near Sidon together with the Alexander Sarcophagus and other related sarcophagi. Tabnit's body was found floating perfectly preserved in the original embalming fluid. Both the sarcophagus and Tabnit's decomposed skeleton are now in the Istanbul Archaeology Museums.
The sarcophagus, together with the Eshmunazar II sarcophagus, were possibly acquired by the Sidonians following their participation in the Battle of Pelusium, and served as models for later Phoenician sarcophagi.Dating
Both the Tabnit sarcophagus and the Eshmunazar II sarcophagus are thought to originally date from the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, which had its capital at Sais. This is partially due to their resemblance to similar sarcophagi such as the Psamtik II-era Horkhebit sarcophagus from Saqqara, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
