OCIANA
Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia

U 063

Siglum
U 063
Alternative Sigla
AH 129; Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2016a: 76–77
Transliteration
ʿbdlwy h- q{s¹}m/w s¹ṭ ḏʿmn/ḥggw[/][l-] ḏġbt/b- khl f rḍ -hm w rb -hm/zdlh w qnt/tʾl
Translation
ʿbdlwy the oracle priest, and the officer of Ḏʿmn performed the pilgrimage {for} Ḏġbt at Khl and so favour them and their lord Zdlh and Qnt Tʾl

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus
The line numbers below refer to the OCIANA reading not that of Sima. TEXT Line 1. Sima does not read this line. Line 2. Sima: ----[b] in this line; Abū l-Ḥasan interprets the beginning of this line as the personal name ʾykm. Line 3. Sima: ḥʿgm for ḥggm. Line 4. Sima reads the expression b- khl after the prayer f rḍ -hm (line 5). On the photograph can be read that the place name takes place after the god name, before the prayer, as is usually in the inscription from al-ʿUḏayb. Line 7. Sima: tfl rather than tʾl. TRANSLATION Line 2. s¹ṭ, Abū l-Ḥasan: 'eminent man (?) (of Ḏʿmn)'. Lines 3–4. b- khl, Abū l-Ḥasan: 'in the month Khl'; Sima: 'by their abilities'. DISCUSSION Macdonald 2004: 522. Sima 1999: 89, for qs¹m as "oracle priest". Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2014: 19–20, 20–22, for the place names Ḏʿmn and Khl. Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2016b: 128, for the divine name Ḏġbt.
Commentary
Line 1. For s¹ṭ compare Arabic sawṭ, Hebrew šōṭ and Syrian sawṭ "a whip, a scourage". Note the expression in Classical Arabic: fulān yasūṭ al-ḥarb ‘such a one superintends, manages or conducts, in person, the war’ (Lane 1863-1893: 1467a). It is clear that s¹ṭ refers to an ‘officer’ (‘someone who commands’). Given the paucity of examples in known inscriptions, however, it is hard to determine what kind of officer he was and what exactly his duties would have been (Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2016a: 74). Line 2. A reading of the name hṯ{s¹}m as hṯ[b}m should not be excluded. Line 3. There is an unexpected w at the end of this line. This letter does not provide any sense of the text. It could be a mason's mistake. Line 4. This line is shorter than those above and below it. Lines 5–6. These lines tend to lean upwards contrary towards the lines above them which tend to lean downwards. It seems that whoever commissioned the inscription intended to end the text with the prayer. However, after line 5 had been carved, it was realised that the names of two other people had been omitted at the beginning and so they were added at the end.

Provenance
Al-ʿUḏayb (Jabal ʿIkmah). The inscription is chiselled on a rock inside the gorge
Original Reading Credit
OCIANA
Original Translation Credit
OCIANA

Technique
Incised

Associated Inscriptions
It is to the left of U 062 and above AH 125

  • 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 290–292 Plate 15
  • Sima, A. Die lihyanischen Inschriften von al-ʿUḏayb (Saudi-Arabien). (Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel, 1). Rahden/Westf.: Leidorf, 1999. pp 21, 89 Plate 16a
  • Lane, E.W. An Arabic-English Lexicon, Derived from the Best and Most Copious Eastern Sources. (Volume 1 in 8 parts [all published]). London: Williams & Norgate, 1863-1893.
  • Macdonald, M.C.A. Ancient North Arabian. Pages 488-533 in R.D. Woodard (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
  • 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. Three Dadanitic inscriptions from al-·Uḏayb (oasis of al-ʿUlā) and the occurrence of the word s¹ṭ. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 27, 2016: 72–78
  • 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, Isolated Prayer, Place-name, Religion
Script
Dadanitic
Old OCIANA ID
#0033127
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