OCIANA
Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia

U 026

Siglum
U 026
Alternative Sigla
Stiehl A 04; Al-Qudrah 1993: 16, no. 4; AH 038; D 097
Transliteration
ʾbʿl/ḏl/ʾfyh/h- ẓll l- ḏġbt/ rḍ -hm/w s¹– ʿd -hm/w ʿqb -hm[/]ʾny ys¹rg[/]ʾb -hm/w {m}ʿn -h[m] w {m}fr -h{m}/b- ms²hl
Translation
The lords of Ḏl accomplished the ẓll-ceremony (as they had vowed) for Ḏġbt favour them and help them and their children [or successors]; see now that [?] their pasture may be beautified and {their} {abode} and {their} {cultivated land} in Ms²hl

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus
TEXT Line 1. Stiehl, followed by Al-Qudrah, considers the first three words as three personal names, of which only the first and second would be separated by a word-divider. Both authors add the verb ʾẓlw before h-ẓll because of the plural pronominal suffixes in the other lines. Abū l-Ḥasan reads the third word as ʾfyh which he took to be a spelling of the Dadanitic verb ʾfy (cf. Arabic ʾawfā ‘to accomplish (a vow)’), suggesting that ʾfyh represented *ʾafāʾ with the final h representing the hamza [?]). Sima believed that the second word should read ḏ[ʾ]lh 'of the lineage of' in which the mason had erroneously omitted the letter ʾalif and had inserted a word-divider between this and the following word. Lastly, Farès-Drappeau considers that the first word is a noun in the plural and the second (ḏlhʾbyh) is an ethnic name. She also inserts the verb ʾẓllw. Following Farès-Drappeau, we take the first word of line 1, ʾbʿl, to be the plural of the noun bʿl "lord", perhaps "property owners" or "priests" as in Sabaic (Beeston et al., p. 25). It is clear on the photograph that the second word in this line is ḏl preceded and followed by word-dividers and that the third word is ʾbyh or more probably ʾfyh (compare the third letter of line 5 (f) with the 4th letter of line 2 (b)). Abū l-Ḥasan was the first to recognize this, though we do not follow his interpretation of the verb. Ahmad Al-Jallad suggested that ʾfyh here is the 3rd person feminine singular of the suffix conjugation (*ʾawfiyah) in which the final [-t] had become [-h] as in Hebrew and sporadically in Dadanitic. If ʾbʿl is taken as a group then the feminine singular would be an acceptable verbal agreement despite the plural suffixes later in the text. If this is correct it is unnecessary to insert another verb, as Stiehl, Al-Qudrah, Sima, and Farès-Drappeau did. Line 4. Abū l-Ḥasan reads ys¹rmʾb -hm for ys¹rg[/]b- -hm. TRANSLATION Line 1. h- ẓll, Stiehl followed by Al-Qudrah: 'the awning'; Sima: '(he) covered'; Farès-Drappeau: 'the sacrifice'. Line 3. ʿqb -hm, Sima: 'the assistance (of Ḏġbt) to them'; Al-Qudrah followed by Farès-Drappeau: '(he) rewarded them'. Lines 3–4. ʾny, Stiehl: personal name; ʾb -hm, Farès-Drappeau: 'their ancestors'. Line 5. ys¹rg, Sima does not translate this word; m{f}r -hm, Farès-Drappeau: 'their abundant harvest'. DISCUSSION Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2014: 22, for the place name Ms²hl. Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2016: 128, for the divine name Ḏġbt.
Commentary
The text is rather carelessly incised. A word-divider has been omitted in line 4 and another is misshapen in line 2, while the shapes of some of the letters are badly formed, e.g. the m of rḍ -hm in line 2 and ʿqb -hm in line 3. It therefore seems possible that other mistakes were made such as the use of the 3rd person dual in the verb in line 1 following a plural subject, and the possible confusion of the forms of b and f in (f) rḍ -hm in line 2, and b and m in (m)ʿn in line 4 and (m)fr in line 5. Indeed, all the examples of m in this text are more or less misshapen. Line 1. Ḏl can be interpreted as a tribe, an institution or a place. Line 2. The letter before rḍ -hm is a clear b but we would suggest that it is a mason's error for the f- which is found universally in this expression. On other errors made by the mason who carved this text see General Notes. Line 3. For ʿqb cf. Arabic ʿaqb ‘children, offspring’, an alternative to the more usual ʾḫrt. The m of -hm is badly carved and the following word divider is bent to the left. ʾny: We would therefore tentatively interpret ʾny as marking a new clause and Ahmad Al-Jallad has compared it to Ugaritic hny, Hebrew hinneh and Arabic inna. If this is correct it is new in Dadanitic. Line 4. For ys¹rg cf. Arabic yusarraǧu, the passive of the II form: "it was rendered beautiful, it was embellished ". For ʾb, cf. Arabic abb "herbage, pasture". We have tentatively taken the letter after the w in the next word as a m rather than a b (cf. the second letter in line 5 which also seems to be a m). Mʿn here could be interpreted on the basis of Arabic maʿān "a place of abode".

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

Technique
In relief

Associated Inscriptions
It is below U 025, to the right of U 029 and to the left of U 023

  • 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 133–135 Plate 5
  • 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 193
  • Sima, A. Die lihyanischen Inschriften von al-ʿUḏayb (Saudi-Arabien). (Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel, 1). Rahden/Westf.: Leidorf, 1999. pp 12 Plate 6b
  • 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. pp 4, 14–15 Plate 10, 12
  • Al-Qudrah, Ḥ.M. Dirāsah muʿǧamiyyah li-ʾlfāẓ al-nuqūš al-liḥyāniyyah fī iṭār al-luġāt al-sāmiyyah al-ǧanūbiyyah. Unpublished MA Thesis, Epigraphy Section, Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, Yarmouk University, Irbid. 1993.
  • 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, Isolated Prayer, Place-name, Relatives, Religion
Script
Dadanitic
Old OCIANA ID
#0037678
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