OCIANA
Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia

AMJ 148

Siglum
AMJ 148
Alternative Sigla
Jobling 1984-1986: 32–35; CH.R232.4
Transliteration
l ḃnt bn ġnṯ bn ʾfṣy w ḏkrt lt ʾfṣy w ʿlm[] -h w ʿqrb w ʿwḏ w s²[y]ʿ -n kll -hm w ḃnt ḫṭṭ ḏ ʾfṣy
Translation
By Ḃnt son of Ġnṯ son of ʾfṣy; and may Lt remember ʾfṣy and its chief and ʿqrb and ʿwḏ and our {followers} all of them, and Ḃnt is [the] drawer, who is of ʾfṣy

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus
TEXT Jobling: ḫnḍ rather than ġnṯ, ʿlmnh for ʿlm[] -h and šʿn for s²[y]ʿ. TRANSLATION ḫṭṭ, King: "[the] inscriber"; Corbett: "(he) carved". To take ḫṭṭ as a verb here is too vague in a context where the inscription is in effect a signature to the drawing. DISCUSSION King (1990: 622–623) commented: "Jobling (1984–1986: 32–35). I have not seen this publication and the reading are based on the facsimiles reproduced in Jamme (1988: 164). All the f's of the text are squiggly lines with more than three indentations which is unusual. Jobling's (1984–1986: 32–33) copy has a dot between the m an h of the second word after lt. As there is no photograph available to me I have not been able to check the reading. If the dot id intentional, to be read as n, then the letters are difficult to explain (see Jamme 1988: 171). The word ʿlmh might be a name in which the final h is used instead of t for tāʾ marbūṭa (Ch. 3. A. 8) but is seems more likely that ʿlm is a substantive 'chief' (cf. Ar. ʿalam) and –h the third person pronominal suffix referring to ʾfṣy which would then be a tribal name of the name of whichever social group is implied by the expression ḏ ʾfṣy 'who is of ʾfṣy' which occurs at the end. s²ʿn poses a problem. The n is the first person plural pronominal suffix and the following kllhm indicates that the substantive is a plural. The plural form ʾs²yʿ occurs in KJA 36 and KJA 641 and it is possible that here the author left out both the ʾ and y, although it is perhaps more likely that he would have left out only one letter. In Ar. the word s¹īʿah 'follower' has two plurals, ʾas²yāʿ and s²iyaʿ, and this text suggests that the both might have been in used in the dialect. If that is the case, then the word would more correctly be translated 'followers' rather than 'companions' (as it is usually translated in Safaitic, Winnett and Harding 1978: 629) from Ar. s²ayʿ which only has the plural form ʾas²yāʿ. Further interesting features of the text is the use of ḏ alone to introduce the author's affiliation to ʾfṣy at the end and the fact the author's grandfather's name is the same as the names of the social group in the prayer and the one the author ascribes himself to".
Commentary
Photograph: Corbett 2010.

Original Reading Credit
King 1990
Original Translation Credit
OCIANA

  • Jamme, A. Miscellanées d'ancient arabe XVI. Washington, DC: [privately produced], 1988.
  • 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.
  • Jobling, W.J. Desert Deities: Some New Epigraphic Evidence for the Deities Dushares and al-Lat from the Aqaba-Maʿan Area of Southern Jordan. Religious Traditions 7-9, 1984-1986: 25-40.
  • Corbett, G.J Mapping the mute immortals: A locational and contextual analysis of Thamudic E/Ḥismaic inscriptions and rock drawing from the Wādī Ḥafīr of southern Jordan. PhD Thesis (University of Chicago). 2010.
Site
Wādī Ḥafīr, Al-‘Aqabah Governorate, Jordan
Current Location
In situ
Subjects
Deity, Genealogy, Isolated Prayer, Lineage, Religion
Script
Hismaic
Old OCIANA ID
#0051625
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