LP 297

Siglum: LP 297
Alternative Sigla: Is.Mu 25
Transliteration: l ʿwqʾ bn hḏ{t} w rʿy h- nḫl ġzz s¹nt qtl mʿn
Translation: By {ʿwqʾl} son of Hḏt and he pastured the valley while raiding in the year in which Mʿn was killed

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus: LP: [w] ġzz for ġzz
Commentary: The last letter of the first name looks like a h, but it seems likely that the side bar was added later since it is slightly wider than the long stroke. The last letter of the second name is also in doubt since the horizontal bar is much thicker than the vertical, and it is possible that the name was actually hḏn. We take ġzz as an active participle in the accusative of ḥāl.

Provenance: Al-ʿĪsāwī Area H. Al-ʿĪsāwī is the name of a probably ancient well between two headlands on the eastern side of the Wādī Shām as it runs northwards from the modern Al-Namārah dam to the Ruḥbah. The well is large, stone lined and with stone water-channels running from it. The main concentration of published inscriptions is on the top of the northern headland, but there also many inscriptions on its south-west slopes, coming down to the well and on the southern headland, on the crest of which is a stone tower. Littmann visited the site twice when he and other members of the expeditions copied some 450 inscriptions. Between 1996 and 2003, the Safaitic Epigraphic Survey Programme [SESP] made a comprehensive survey of the site recording over 3500 inscriptions.

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.
Inscriptions recorded at al-ʿĪsāwī by Muna Al-Muʾazzin, on the Safaitic Epigraphic Survey Programme, 1995–2002, and published here.