LP 464

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus: LP: ʿʾdt for ʿ{{b}}dt
Commentary: On the same face as LP 463 and the drawing of a horse. The second letter has been filled in and the third has had projections added it to turn it from a b to a ʾ. It seems that the author of LP 464 carved the drawing but that the author of LP 463 then appropriated the credit for the drawing by carving his name at such an angle that he could use the t of the original author's name and h- frs¹.

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.

Associated Drawings: A drawing of a horse (according to the inscriptions) with some thing that looks like a bow on its tail.
Associated Inscriptions: LP 463 [= Is.R 135] (on this face); Is.R 136–137.1 (on another face); Is.R 138 (on yet another face)

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.
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.
Inscriptions recorded at al-ʿĪsāwī by Reem Salih, on the Safaitic Epigraphic Survey Programme, 1996, 2000, and published here.