OCIANA
Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia

WH 30

Text Information

Siglum
WH 30
Transliteration
l s²rb bn ʾḥbb bn ns²wn h- rʿy h- rḥb
Translation
By S²rb son of ʾḥbb son of Ns²wn in the spacious pasture

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus
WH: This spacious pasture belongs to S²rb son of ʾḥbb son of Ns²wn
Commentary
M.C.A. Macdonald (Burial between the Desert and the Sown, Damaszener Mitteilungen 15 2006:294-295) argues against the notion of the ownership of immovable property in desert societies. The SD translation renders the phase "h- rʿy h- rḥb" as a locative expression, which could, in theory, continue the Proto-Semitic locative case *-um, reflexes of which are found in the Classical Arabic prepositions baʿdu 'yet', etc. Given the limitations of the orthography, this suggestion is impossible to prove at this point.

Provenance
Burquʿ
Original Reading Credit
Ed. pr.
Original Translation Credit
OCIANA

Technique
Direct hammered

Associated Remains
Cairn
Associated Inscriptions

  • Winnett, F.V. & Harding, G.L. Inscriptions from Fifty Safaitic Cairns. (Near and Middle East Series, 9). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978.
  • Al-Jallad, A.M. An Outline of the Grammar of the Safaitic Inscriptions. (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, 80). Leiden: Brill, 2015.
Site
WH Cairn 1, Al-Mafraq Governorate, Jordan
Date Found
1958–1959
Current Location
in situ
Subject
Genealogy
Script
Safaitic
Old OCIANA ID
#0010774
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