OCIANA
Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia

TM.T.020

Siglum
TM.T.020
Alternative Sigla
Taymāʾ Museum register 421; Kootstra 2016: 119
Transliteration
---- {k}frl b zbd {n}ṣb yd -h [h-] ʾlht
Translation
{---- kfrl} son of Zbd {set up} [with] his [own] hand a standing stone [for] {the} goddess

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus
Macdonald & Al-Najem (2016) commented: "It is a grey sandstone rectangular block (100 x 45 x 49 cm) with, at one end, a short, and much damaged, tenon (29 cm high and 27 x 33 cm at one end, 17 x 14 cm at the other). Other examples discovered in the Saudi-German excavations suggest that it is a reused pillar and that the tenon served to attach a capital. The inscription, which was facing the wall when found, is written horizontally across one face, in two parallel lines both starting at the right. Not previously published, but photographs of the object in situ (probably in a secondary context) are shown on Abu Duruk – Murad 1986: 47. The corner beside the beginning of the inscription is missing with the loss of one or more letters from the start of each line. However, the left vertical of what is probably a k remains at the beginning of the first line, and traces of a n at the beginning of the second. I would suggest that the second line means literally 'his hand set up the stela (to) [the] goddess'. The verb nṣb meaning 'to set up a standing stone or aniconic material representative of a deity' in which the deity is the direct object of the verb, is found twice in Safaitic in the expression w nṣb divine name 'and he set up the standing stone of divine name' (literally 'he set up the deity'). It would seem that the definite article (h-) before ʾlht has been omitted, probably because of the way the phrase was pronounced. This is a process which is also found in the Safaitic inscriptions where w l-h rgm for *w l-h h-rgm 'and his is the cairn' presupposes that the pronominal suffix was pronounced -Vh rather than hV (e.g. *uh rather than *hu) as it is in many Arabic dialects. The writer would then have pronounced the phrase something like *yaduhʾalahat and so wrote ydhʾlht".
Commentary
This is one of only two occasions so far that the setting up a standing stone for a deity has been recorded in Taymanitic (see Wādī Zaydāniyyah Tay 21). It has also found three times in Safaitic with the same construction, i.e. nṣb as a verb with the deity as its direct object, see LP 237 (w nṣb hlt), RQ.A 9 (w nṣb ʾlt dṯn), and Macdonald, Al Muazzin & Nehmé 1996: 453–458, no. D (w nṣb ʾṯʿ), and the discussion on p. 456".

Provenance
Taymāʾ in Area O1 in the Saudi excavations at Qaṣr Ḥamrāʾ in 1985 (see Duruk – Murad 1986: 30, pl. 47, where it is referred to as the 'statue')

  • Littmann, E. Safaïtic Inscriptions. Syria. Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904–1905 and 1909. Division IV. Section C. Leiden: Brill, 1943.
  • Abu-Duruk, H.I. & Murad, A. Preliminary Report on Qasr Al-Hamra Excavations, Tayma, Third Season 1405/1985. Atlal 10, 1986: 29-35, pls 29-56.
  • Macdonald, M.C.A., Al Muʾazzin, M. & Nehmé, L. Les inscriptions safaïtiques de Syrie, cent quarante ans après leur découverte. Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions & Belles-Lettres 1996: 435-494.
  • Kootstra, F. The Language of the Taymanitic Inscriptions and its Classification. Arabian Epigraphic Notes 2, 2016: 67–140
  • Macdonald, M.C.A. & Al-Naǧem [Al-Najem], M. Catalogue of the Inscriptions in the Taymāʾ Museum and other collections, with contributions from F. Imbert, J. Norris & P. Stein. Oxford, 2023
Site
Taymāʾ, Tabūk Province, Saudi Arabia
Current Location
Taymāʾ Museum register 421
Subjects
Deity, Genealogy, Religion, Structure
Script
Taymanitic
Old OCIANA ID
#0040444
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