LP 328

Siglum: LP 328
Alternative Sigla: Is.Mu 140
Transliteration: l ḥbb bn s²mt w wgd s¹fr ḥbb f ngʿ
Translation: By Ḥbb son of S²mt and he found the inscription of a friend and he grieved in pain

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus: LP 328: w wgd s¹fr ḥbb f ngʿ "and he found the inscription of Ḥbb [Or: of a friend] and longed [for him]"
Commentary: If the author of the inscription which was found was indeed called ḥbb, it would be a remarkable coincidence that the finder also bore this name. There is even the possibility that the inscription found was also by the author of the present text.

Provenance: 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.