OCIANA
Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia

AH 111

Siglum
AH 111
Alternative Sigla
Sima 1999: 44–45; Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2016: 77
Transliteration
zdlh bn[/]t<<>>rf– h s¹ṭ s¹ṭ ḏʿmn s¹nt/r{ṭ}
Translation
Zdlh {son of} Trf– h commanded the officer of Ḏʿmn Year {Rṭ}

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus
TEXT Line 3. Sima does not read the beginning of this line. Line 5. Abū l-Ḥasan followed by Sima: s¹ntr---- for s¹nt r{ṭ}. TRANSLATION Line 3. s¹ṭ, Abū l-Ḥasan: 'what is offered in the local dialect of the inscriptions, or eminent person, authority, sultan (in Ḏʿmn)'. Line 5. Sima does not translate this line. DISCUSSION Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2014: 19–20, for the place name Ḏʿmn.
Commentary
The name zdlh is usually a man's name but here is followed by bnt/rfh. Yet the following verb is in the masculine singular of the suffix conjugation. We therefore suggest that the author was a man and that the carver misplaced the word-divider in line 2 (oddly, the only one in the text) and that the line should have read bn/trfh. The letters to the left of this inscription belong to another graffito ( AH 111.1). The word s¹nt 'year' is not followed by a date, but by what is possibly a personal name. Line 3. For s¹ṭ compare Arabic sawṭ, Hebrew šōṭ and Syrian sawṭ "a whip, a scourage". It is to consider here the expression in Classical Arabic: fulān yasūṭ al-ḥarb ‘such a one superintendents, 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 the duties of such an officer were (Hidalgo-Chacón Díez 2016: 74).

Provenance
Al-ʿUḏayb (Jabal ʿIkmah)
Original Reading Credit
OCIANA
Original Translation Credit
OCIANA

Technique
Incised

Associated Inscriptions
It is to the right of AH 109 and AH 111.1, to the left of AH 113 and above AH 110

  • 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 267–269 Plate 14
  • Sima, A. Die lihyanischen Inschriften von al-ʿUḏayb (Saudi-Arabien). (Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel, 1). Rahden/Westf.: Leidorf, 1999. pp 44–45
  • 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.
  • 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
Site
The oasis of al-ʿUlā, Al-Madīnah Province, Saudi Arabia
Current Location
In situ
Subjects
Date (s¹nt), Genealogy, Place-name
Script
Dadanitic
Old OCIANA ID
#0037774
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