[1] Known as the Hadad-yith'i bilingual inscription, as it is written in both Old Aramaic and Akkadian, its discovery, decipherment and study contributes significantly to cultural and linguistic understandings of the region.
[2] The life-size basalt statue of a male standing figure carved in Assyrian style was uncovered by a Syrian farmer in February 1979 at the edge of Tell Fekheriye on a branch of the Khabur opposite Tell Halaf, identified with ancient Guzana.
[3] Most stone statues discovered and documented as belonging to the Neo-Assyrian period depict either the kings of Assyria or its gods.
[2] The name of the inscription's commissioner is recorded as Adad Itʾi/Hadad Yithʿī, and dedicates the statue to the temple in Sikanu of the storm god Hadad, a deity worshipped throughout Syria and Mesopotamia at the time.
[8][9] More discoveries and decipherments of ancient Semitic inscriptions have since uncovered dozens of other examples based on this triliteral root yṯʿ, the earliest of these being from 2048 BCE in the Amorite personal name lašuil.