OCIANA
Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia

U 038

Siglum
U 038
Alternative Sigla
AH 029; D 152
Transliteration
ḏbn/ʿmr/bn/mrd ʾgw/h- ẓll/ḏh/l- ḏġbt ʿl----mʿ/hn- ʾfklt/b- bnʾl f rḍ -h/w ʾḫr[t] -h w ʾṯb -h/hnʾ/bn/ʿmr
Translation
Ḏbn ʿmr son of Mrd organized this ẓll-ceremony for Ḏġbt ---- the priestess in Bnʾl and so favour him and his {posterity} and reward him Hnʾ son of ʿmr

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus
TEXT Line 1. Abū l-Ḥasan followed by Farès-Drappeau: ḏbḫ for ḏbn and mrh for mrd. Line 2. Abū l-Ḥasan: h- ṭll rather than h- ẓll. Line 3. Abū l-Ḥasan: [l/] before hn-ʾfklt; Sima restores several letters in this line which do not appear on the photograph; Farès-Drappeau: ʿl---- for ʿl----mʿ. TRANSLATION Line 2. ʾgw, Abū l-Ḥasan: '(they) offered'; ʾgw h- ẓll ḏh, Sima: '(they) cleared out this subterranean water-channel'; Farès-Drappeau: '(they) offered this meat [of the female camel]'. Line 3. ʾḫrt -h, Farès-Drappeau: 'he has guided him'. DISCUSSION Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2014: 17, for the place name Bnʾl. Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2016: 128, for the divine name Ḏġbt.
Commentary
It is clear that this inscription postdates those hammered in large letters above and to the right of it (U 037) since the author of U 038 has drawn a line above his text to separate it from them. It would appear that the author had a double name, as occurs often in Dadanitic. Unfortunately, the beginning of line 3 is damaged. It presumably contained the preposition ʿl- followed by the name of the priestess, i.e. "on behalf of N, the priestess...". It is impossible to be sure, but if the ẓll-ceremony was organized on behalf of the priestess, the enclitic pronoun -h in lines 3 and 4 may refer to her. At the end of line 3, ʾḫr -h is clear. This is either a mistake by the carver for ʾḫrt -h, or a case of influence from Nabataean where ʾḫr is the normal word for "posterity", see DNWSI p. 38. It is possible that hnʾ bn ʿmr in line 4 was the son of ḏbn ʿmr bn mrd in the first line. He may even have carved the inscription, and left his "signature" here.

Provenance
Al-ʿUḏayb (Jabal ʿIkmah). It is incised on one side of the huge rock, which Stiehl (1971: 4) called 'Block A'
Original Reading Credit
OCIANA
Original Translation Credit
OCIANA

Technique
Incised

Associated Inscriptions
It is below and to the left of U 037

  • Abū ʾl-Ḥasan, Ḥ.ʿA.D. Qirāʾah li-kitābāt liḥyāniyyah min ǧabal ʿakmah bi-minṭaqat al-ʿulā. Al-Riyāḍ: Maktabat al-malik fahd al-waṭaniyyah, 1997. pp 115–117 Plate 4
  • Farès-Drappeau, S. Dédan et Liḥyān. Histoire des Arabes aux confins des pouvoirs perse et hellénistique (IVe–IIe s. avant l'ère chrétienne). (Travaux de la maison de l'Orient, 42). Lyon: Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée — Jean Pouilloux, 2005. pp 219
  • Hoftijzer, J. & Jongeling, K. Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions. With appendices by R.C. Steiner, A. Mosak Moshavi and B. Porten.. (2 volumes). (Handbuch der Orientalistik, 21). Leiden: Brill, 1995. Vol. 1 pp 38
  • Sima, A. Die lihyanischen Inschriften von al-ʿUḏayb (Saudi-Arabien). (Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel, 1). Rahden/Westf.: Leidorf, 1999. pp 15–16 Plate 8b, 29a, 29b
  • Stiehl, R. Neue liḥyānische Inschriften aus al-ʿUḏaib I mit einem Nachtrag M. Höfners. Pages 3-40, 565-566, 569-594, pl. 1-45 in F. Altheim and R. Stiehl (eds), Christentum am Roten Meer. 1. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971. p 4
  • Hidalgo-Chacón Díez, M. del C. Place names in the Dadanitic inscriptions of al-ʿUḏayb. Adumatu 30, 2014: 15-30
  • Hidalgo-Chacón Díez. M. del C. The divine names at Dadan: a philological approach. Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 46, 2016: 125–136
Site
The oasis of al-ʿUlā, Al-Madīnah Province, Saudi Arabia
Current Location
In situ
Subjects
Deity, Genealogy, Isolated Prayer, Place-name, Religion, Women
Script
Dadanitic
Old OCIANA ID
#0033112
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