OCIANA
Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia

U 055

Siglum
U 055
Alternative Sigla
AH 060
Transliteration
ʾmtrʿt/bnt/s¹ʿdlh w b{n} -h/s¹ʿdʾl/w s²rd/ʾẓlw l- ḏġbt/bʿd/n{ḫ}l -hm/b- ḏʿmn/f rḍ -hm w s¹ʿd -hm m
Translation
ʾmtrʿt daughter of S¹ʿdlh and her {two sons} S¹ʿdʾl and S²rd performed the ẓll-ceremony for Ḏġbt for the sake of their {palm trees} in Ḏʿmn and so favour them and help them m

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus
TEXT Line 1. Abū l-Ḥasan ʾmts²ʿt rather than ʾmtrʿt. Line 2. The mason carved the third letter in this line as a r instead of n (see the commentary). In his copy, Abū l-Ḥasan merged this r with the following h and read bh which he interpreted as [ʾ]b -h. In addition he reads ʾṭlw for ʾẓlw. TRANSLATION Line 2. ʾẓlw, Sima: '(they) covered (the subterranean water-channel)'. Line 3. bʿd, Sima: 'in the direction of'. DISCUSSION Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2014: 19–20, for the place name Ḏʿmn. Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2016: 128, for the divine name Ḏġbt.
Commentary
Line 2. The photographs show that the mason carved the third letter as a r rather than a n, hence br rather than bn. The word must be in the dual (*binay-h) since it is followed by two names, but the medial diphthong would not of course be represented in Dadanitic orthography. The verb ʾẓlw means "they performed the ẓll-ceremony", the exact nature of which we do not know. Usually, but not always, this verb is followed by the noun h-ẓll meaning "the ẓll-ceremony". Thus, ʾẓlw and ʾẓlw h-ẓll both mean "they performed the ẓll-ceremony". Line 3. The short diagonal line of the ġ in the word ḏġbt is on the right rather than the left side of the letter. Note the strange form of the letter ḫ in the word n(ḫ)l. Line 5. The mason may originally have carved the fourth letter as a h but he turned it into a d, by drilling a circular hole in the lower part of the short diagonal of the h. Lines 5–6. The carver lightly carved a m at the end of line 5 and then repeated it on line 6. The arrangement of the text is bizarre. The lines are not aligned on either side, the third line is much longer than the rest and there seems no reason for the brevity of the fourth and fifth lines or for the repetition of the final m on the sixth.

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

  • 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 180–182 Plate 8
  • Sima, A. Die lihyanischen Inschriften von al-ʿUḏayb (Saudi-Arabien). (Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel, 1). Rahden/Westf.: Leidorf, 1999. pp 20 Plate 14a
  • 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
Agriculture, Deity, Genealogy, Isolated Prayer, Place-name, Relatives, Religion, Women
Script
Dadanitic
Old OCIANA ID
#0037659
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