OCIANA
Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia

KJA 28

Siglum
KJA 28
Transliteration
nyk hnʾ ġlmt ʿṣ f s¹th w rṣt w {b}ny w brd ḫṭṭ
Translation
Hnʾ had sex repeatedly with a young girl, with difficulty and he struck [her] on the buttocks and she closed up?, and {Bny} and Brd are [the] drawers

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus
TRANSLATION ḫṭṭ, King: "[the] inscribers". DISCUSSION King (1990: 184–185) commented: "The text begins to the right of KJA 27 and is written in a zig-zag turning up towards KJA 29a and then turning down towards KJA 29b. For other texts using nyk, see Ch.4.E.2. The rest of the text after ġlmt is ambiguous. ʿṣ might be the name of the woman (Harding 1971: 422) in apposition to the substantive. On the other hand, the verb nk in KJA 24 is followed by an adverbial expression and I have translated ʿṣ from Ar ʿawiṣa ‘it became difficult’ from which a verbal noun ʿayṣ is attested although rarely (Lane 2196b). f, is the particle fa with the meaning ‘and so’. Ar. satahahu means ‘he struck him on the buttocks’, here the object must be supplied ‘he struck [her] on the buttocks’. The translation of the next four letters is difficult. It seems to continue the sequence of events and w is probably the conjunctive particle. The r of the next word has been left out and is written to the right of the w. The next letter I have read as ṣ, as it copied in the field, although from the photograph there seems to be a shallow curve joining the fork and perhaps it is a g. The verb Ar. raṣṣa means ‘stick together, join, make firm’ referring to a building and also ‘close’. raṣṣāʾ applied to a woman has the meaning ‘impervia coeunti’ and is used in the expression raṣṣāʾ al-faḫaḏayn ‘a woman whose thighs are close together’. I would suggest that the meaning here is ‘she closed herself’ i.e. resisted him. The twenty-second letter which I have read as b was copied as a ṭ. Although there is a middle stroke, it is much shallower than the rest of the letter and it is probably extraneous. bny as a verb Ar. banā ‘build’ would have no relevance to the text and must be interpreted as a proper name. The inscription is written by him and brd and the word ḫṭṭ is probably a broken plural, although one would expect the dual to have been used. The subject of both this and KJA 23 is someone called hnʾ and if both texts are about the same man, the accounts of his sexual activities are at variance, although it would be understandable that hnʾ should record a conquest whereas his friends leave snide remarks or a less successful account".

Original Reading Credit
King 1990: 184–185
Original Translation Credit
King 1990: 184–185

  • 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.
  • Harding, G.L. An Index and Concordance of Pre-Islamic Arabian Names and Inscriptions. (Near and Middle East Series, 8). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971.
  • King, G.M.H. Early North Arabian Thamudic E. A preliminary description based on a new corpus of inscriptions from the Ḥismā desert of southern Jordan and published material. Ph.D thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1990. [Unpublished]. 1990.
Site
Wādī Ǧudayyid site A, Al-‘Aqabah Governorate, Jordan
Current Location
In situ
Subjects
Sexual references, Women
Script
Hismaic
Old OCIANA ID
#0047701
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