OCIANA
Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia

AH 209

Text Information

Siglum
AH 209
Alternative Sigla
Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2017
Transliteration
---- [b]n/ḥ– ---- mʾbh bnt/l– ḥy/qr– bw/h- mḥrw l- ḏġ– bt/f rḍy -h– my/w ʾḫrt -h– my/ḏ
Translation
---- {son of} Ḥ– ----mʾbh daughter of L– ḥy dedi– cated the incense altar to Ḏġ– bt and so may he favour them both and both their posterity Ḏ

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus
TEXT Line 1. Abū l-Ḥasan: ----n rather than ---- [b]n. TRANSLATION Line 6. mḥrw, Abū l-Ḥasan: 'shell'. DISCUSSION Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2017, for mḥrw.
Commentary
Since the personal pronouns in lines 7–10 are in the dual, the two broken lines at the beginning of the inscription must have contained two names, probably one male (if our restoration of [b]n is correct) and one female. In addition, the fact that nothing is missing on the left side of lines 3-10 allows us to surmise that this part of the stone had its present shape at the time the text was incised. Indeed, although, unfortunately, no photographs have been published of the top of the "pillar" on which the inscription has been incised, it seems highly likely that it was an incense altar and this would then provide the meaning of the word mḥrw (see the discussion in Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2017), that is an "incense altar" rather than "incense-rituals", as suggested in Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2017. Line 10. The isolated letter ḏ at the end of the text is probably an apotropaic sign (see Macdonald 2004: 509).

Provenance
Jabal Umm Daraǧ
Original Reading Credit
OCIANA
Original Translation Credit
OCIANA

Technique
Incised

Associated Signs
ḏ at the end of the text
Associated Remains
The text is incised on a chamfered pillar which may have been an incense altar.

  • Abū ʾl-Ḥasan, Ḥ.ʿA.D. Nuqūš liḥyānīyah min minṭaqat al-ʿulā. (Dirāsah taḥlīliyyah muqāranah). al-Riyāḍ: Wizārat al-maʿārif, 2002. pp 67–70
  • 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. Remarks on Dadanitic mḥr. With an addendum of the word hʾ in AH 288. Journal of Semitic Studies 62, 2017: 59–68.
Site
The oasis of al-ʿUlā, Al-Madīnah Province, Saudi Arabia
Current Location
In situ
Subjects
Apotropaic sign, Deity, Genealogy, Isolated Prayer, Religion, Women
Script
Dadanitic
Old OCIANA ID
#0033218
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