Phoenician kingship was lifelong and hereditary. The responsibilities and power of the position were passed down to the king's child or another member of their family when they died. The royal ancestry and lineage of Sidonian kings were documented up to the
second- or
third-degree ancestor, as evidenced by lines 13 and 14 of Eshmunazar II's sarcophagus inscription.
Queen mothers held political power and exercised in the form of association with political acts and co-regency. Eshmunazar II's father, Tabnit I, ruled for a short time and died before the birth of his son; he was succeeded by his
sister-wife Amoashtart, who assumed the role of regent during the
interregnum. Eshmunazar II died aged 14 during the reign of his overlord, Cambyses II of Achaemenid Persia. After his death, Eshmunazar II was succeeded by his cousin Bodashtart.
Eshmunazar II's sarcophagus The sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II is one of the only three Ancient Egyptian sarcophagi found outside Egypt; the other two belonged to Eshmunazar's parents, Tabnit and Amoashtart. It was likely carved in Egypt from local
amphibolite for a member of the Egyptian elite, and captured as booty by the Sidonians during their participation in Cambyses II's
conquest of Egypt in 525 BC. The sarcophagus has two sets of
Phoenician inscriptions, one on its lid and a partial copy of it on the sarcophagus trough, around the curvature of the head. The sarcophagus was discovered on 19 January 1855, as
treasure-hunters were digging in the grounds of an ancient cemetery in the plains south of the city of Sidon. It was found outside a hollowed-out rocky mound locally known as
Magharet Abloun ('The Cavern of Apollo'), a part of a large complex of Achaemenid era necropoli. The discovery is attributed to Alphonse Durighello, an agent of the French consulate in Sidon, who informed and sold the sarcophagus to
Aimé Péretié, an amateur archaeologist and the chancellor of the French consulate in Beirut. The sarcophagus was first described, and acquired by
Honoré Théodoric d'Albert de Luynes, a French aristocrat who donated it to the French state. The sarcophagus of King Eshmunazar II is housed in the
Louvre's Near Eastern antiquities section in room 311 of the
Pavillon Sully. It was given the museum identification number AO 4806. The inscriptions of the sarcophagus of Eshmunazar are written in the Phoenician language, in the
Phoenician script. They identify the king buried inside, tell of his lineage and temple construction feats and warn against disturbing him in his repose. The inscriptions also state that the "Lord of Kings" (the Achaemenid King of Kings, probably Cambyses II) granted the Sidonian king "Dor and Joppa, the mighty lands of
Dagon, which are in the Plain of Sharon" in recognition of his deeds. The deeds in question probably relate to the contribution of Eshmunazar to the Egyptian campaign of Cambyses II. Copies of the inscriptions were sent to scholars across the world, and well-known scholars of the time, including German orientalists
Heinrich Ewald and
Emil Rödiger, as well as the French orientalist
Salomon Munk, published translations of them. == Genealogy ==