C 1277

Siglum: C 1277
Alternative Sigla: Wetzstein 163
Transliteration: l bnʾl bn hn{ʾ} {b}{n} ʾs¹ ḏ {ḫ}{l} ʾl ʿ{r}ft
Translation: By Bnʾl son of {Hnʾ} {son of} ʾs¹ of {the horsemen} of the lineage of {ʿrft}

Interpretation

Provenance: The name "Rijm Qaʿqūl" was applied by nineteenth-century travellers to at least four large outcrops at the southern end of the Ruḥba, to the south and south-west of the modern water tower. This helps to explain the curious fact that there is no overlapping between the "Rijm Qaʿqūl" copies of de Vogüé, Wetzstein and Dussaud & Macler, and only in a very few cases between those of de Vogüé and Waddington who were travelling together. The probability that there were multiple cairns with this name is supported by the fact that that while Waddington wrote that it was 10 minutes [ride] from al-ʿUdaysīyah to Rijm Qaʿqūl, Dussaud & Macler say that the journey between the two took 30 minutes. In 1995, the Safaitic Epigraphic Survey Programme identified the sites visited by Wetzstein and by Dusaud & Macler but did not find those where de Vogüé and Waddington had worked. The inscriptions found at Rijm Qaʿqūl "A" were all texts copied by Wetzstein and no one else. It is likely therefore that this is the place he regarded as "Rijm Qaʿqūl". Note that the co-ordinates given here are very approximate.

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Macdonald, M.C.A. ‘Romans Go Home’? Rome and other ‘Outsiders’ as viewed from the Syro-Arabian Desert. Pages 145-163 in J.H.E. Dijkstra & G. Fisher (eds), Inside and Out. Interactions between Rome and the Peoples on the Arabian and Egyptian Frontiers in Late Antiquity. (Late Antique History and Religion, 8). Louvain: Peeters, 2014.