AbSWS 50

AbSWS 50: Trans. وقضى الربيع عام موت وجم والشدة والكرب للظالم

This is a fantastic text that gives us again a glimpse into the metaphorical dimensions of darkness. Darkness is used to signify death and the grave, as reflected in the expression bʾs¹ m ẓll 'evil is that which casts darkness,' often carved after burials and mourning for the dead.

The present inscription was carved in a year when our author had to return to permanent water in the season of the later rains. This means it was a year of drought. It is dated to the death of a man called Wgm, a rather common personal name. The fact that the year is dated by this man's death, however, suggests he held some status in the author's social group. What comes next lends itself to several interpretations.

ġm: This is the verb ġamma 'to cover, to fill, to conceal' (Lane, 2289).

ẓlm: A substantive from the root ẓlm 'darkness'. 

The vocalization of this phrase has two basic interpretive possibilities. The minimalist one is to take it as a passive verb ġomma with an adverbial agent, ẓolma, meaning 'he was covered by darkness', in other words Wgm was buried, connecting to the well-known association between the grave/underworld and darkness (e.g. ġmy bnyt-h 'the darkness of his grave (Al-Jallad 2025c) or we could take the verb as active ġamma ẓolm 'darkness covered'. In the latter case, the object would not be an individual but rather a statement about the seasonal conditions, where because of drought 'darkness covered the entire land' or, rather, 'fell.' The latter interpretation seems preferable as it would give us a double-dating formula: the year Wgm died and darkness fell, but we cannot rule out the more limited understanding referring to Wgm's death alone. It seems unlikely that ġm ẓlm should refer to the condition of the author as one would expect the conjunction f to express a change in referent and result.