The sarcophagus was discovered by Alphonse Durighello, a diplomatic agent in Sidon engaged by Aimé Péretié, the chancellor of the French consulate in Beirut.

The sarcophagus was sold to Honoré de Luynes, a wealthy French nobleman and scholar, and was subsequently removed to the Louvre after the resolution of a legal dispute over its ownership.

More than a dozen scholars across Europe and the United States rushed to translate the sarcophagus inscriptions after its discovery, many noting the similarities between the Phoenician language and Hebrew.

Eshmunazar II and his mother, Queen Amoashtart, constructed new temples and religious buildings dedicated to Phoenician gods such as Baal, Astarte, and Eshmun.

These include inhumations in underground vaults, rock-cut niches, and shaft and chamber tombs in Sarepta,[14] Ain al-Hilweh,[15] Ayaa,[16][17] Magharet Abloun,[18] and the Temple of Eshmun in Bustan el-Sheikh.

[20][21] Surviving mortuary inscriptions from that period invoke deities to assist with the procurement of blessings, and to conjure curses and calamities on whoever desecrated the tomb.

[28][29][30] Durighello's men were digging on the plains southeast of the city of Sidon in the grounds of an ancient necropolis (dubbed Nécropole Phénicienne by French Semitic philologist and biblical scholar Ernest Renan).

One tooth, a piece of bone, and a human jaw were found in the rubble during the sarcophagus extraction, showing that the remains of Eshmunazar II had been robbed in antiquity.

[28][33][34] Durighello's ownership of the sarcophagus was contested by the British vice-consul general in Syria, Habib Abela,[36][37] who claimed he had entered into agreements with the workers and the landowner to assign and sell him the rights to any discoveries.

[note 4] The matter quickly took a political turn; in a letter dated 21 April 1855 the director of the French national museums, Count Émilien de Nieuwerkerke, requested the intervention of Édouard Thouvenel, the French ambassador to the Ottomans, stating that "It is in the best interest of the museum to possess the sarcophagus as it adds a new value at a time in which we start studying with great zeal Oriental antiquities, until now unknown in most of Europe.

[33][39][40][38] The United States Magazine reported on the issue of the legal dispute: In the meantime, a controversy has arisen in regard to the ownership of the discovered monument, between the English and French Consuls in this place, one having made a contract with the owner of the land, by which he was entitled to whatever he should discover in it; and the other having engaged an Arab to dig for him, who came upon the sarcophagus in the other consul's limits, or, as the Californians would say, within his "claim".Péretié purchased the sarcophagus from Durighello and sold it to wealthy French nobleman and scholar Honoré de Luynes for £400.

The commander of Sérieuse, Delmas De La Perugia, read an early translation of the inscriptions, explaining the scientific importance and historical significance of the cargo to his crew.

The effigy is dressed with a large Nubian wig, a false braided beard, and a usekh collar ending with falcon heads at each of its extremities, as is often seen at the neck of Egyptian mummies.

[52] According to Scottish biblical scholar John Gibson the text "offers an unusually high proportion of literary parallels with the Hebrew Bible, especially its poetic sections".

[54] The lid inscription consists of 22 lines of 40 to 55 letters each;[28][55] it occupies a square situated under the sarcophagus' usekh collar and measures 84 cm (2.76 ft) in length and width.

[61] American missionaries William McClure Thomson and Eli Smith who were living in Ottoman Syria at the time of the discovery of the sarcophagus successfully translated most of the text by early 1855, but did not produce any publications.

[89][note 7] Scholars believe these sarcophagi were originally made in Egypt for members of the Ancient Egyptian elite, but were then transported to Sidon and repurposed for the burial of Sidonian royalty.

[91] Herodotus recounts an event in which Cambyses II "ransacked a burial ground at Memphis, where coffins were opened up and the dead bodies they contained were examined", possibly providing the occasion on which the sarcophagi were removed and reappropriated by his Sidonian subjects.

[87][92][note 7] The discovery of the Magharet Abloun hypogeum and of Eshmunazar II's sarcophagus caused a sensation in France, which led Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, to dispatch a scientific mission to Lebanon headed by Ernest Renan.

[97][95][96][98] Due to its length and level of preservation, the inscription offers valuable knowledge about the characteristics of the Phoenician language and, more specifically, of the Tyro-Sidonian dialect.

Additionally, the inscription displays notable similarities to texts in other Semitic languages, evident in its idiomatic expressions, word combinations, and the use of repetition.