LP 1302

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus: LP 1302: ḥnnʾl mm mngʿ w mẓll "Ḥnnʾl — Mm longing and overshadowed [by grief]"
Commentary: Gertrude Bell describes her finding this text and LP 1299–1301, 1302.1 on 23rd March 1905 in "a mass of rock all covered with inscriptions, Nabathaean, Greek, Kufic, and one in a [l]abel [that is a cartouche] which I did not know, but it was very like the oldest script of Yemen Sabaean." (Bell F 1927: 196). See also Bell GL 1907: 122–123. Note that LP 1302 and 1302.1 are not a Greek-Safaitic bilingual, as has been suggested, since the two texts say different things. See Macdonald 2009, I: 347 and n. 282 and 2009, VII: 115 n. 89.

Provenance: Gertrude Bell apparently copied LP 1299–1302.1 together with an unpublished (?) Nabataean text in the area of al-Khirbat al-bayḍā but unfortunately does not give any more exact provenance.

Littmann, E. Safaïtic Inscriptions. Syria. Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904–1905 and 1909. Division IV. Section C. Leiden: Brill, 1943.
Macdonald, M.C.A. Literacy and Identity in Pre-Islamic Arabia. (Variorum Collected Studies, 906). Farnham: Ashgate, 2009.
Bell, G.L. The Desert and the Sown. London: Heinemann, 1907
Bell, F. The letters of Gertrude Bell, selected and edited by Lady Bell. (2 volumes). London: Benn, 1927