GS 49

Siglum: GS 49
Transliteration: l bny bn bny bn ʾ{ʾ}{s¹}d w fks¹ h- nẓ{r}
OCIANA
Translation: By Bny son of Bny son of {ʾʾs¹d} and he fks¹ the {one on the look-out}
OCIANA
Language and Script: Safaitic

Interpretation

Commentary: The sentence following the genealogy is increasingly difficult to interpret. The root fks¹ does not occur in Semitic; Arabic fqs¹, for which a bi-form fqṣ is also attested, means "to die" or "to break". The irregular correspondence between unemphatic and emphatic consonants across Semitic languages is not unknown and, since fks¹ does not occur anywhere else, we can tentatively connect it with Arabic fqs. The existence of an irregular bi-form in Arabic may support our connection. The last letter of the following word should be restored as an r, since there are no roots with n as C1 and ẓ as C2. This produces a rather curious translation: "and he killed the one on the look-out". Another interpretation maintains the connection between Safaitic fks¹ and Arabic fqs, but parses the following word as hn- ẓr. Ẓr can be connected to Arabic ẓirr 'flint', in which case, we would translate the sentence as: "and he broke (struck?) the flint". This translation requires us to assume that the author of this text spoke a hn- dialect. Statistically speaking this is unlikely since the vast majority of texts exhibit only h-, but given that the Arabic ʾl occurs, as well as the assimilating article, ʾ-, we cannot completely rule out the possibility of a hn- dialect in this region as well

Associated Drawings

mounted horse

Associated Inscriptions

[GS] Inscriptions from Ǧabal Says recorded by Robert Hoyland and Michael Macdonald and published here

Updated 16 Sep, 2024 by OCIANA

OCIANA,. 'GS 49.' OCIANA. 16 Sep, 2024. https://ociana.osu.edu/inscriptions/11591. Accessed: 22 Sep, 2025.