WH 1859

Siglum: WH 1859
Transliteration: l ʾnʿm bn s²hm bn ġṯ w bny h- s¹trt l- hnʾ hdy s¹nt mṣr ʾl whbʾl l- grs²
OCIANA
Translation: By ʾnʿm son of S²hm son of Ġṯ and he [helped] build the fortified encampment for Hnʾ the commander the year of the expeditionary force of ʾl Whbʾl to Gerasa.
OCIANA
Language and Script: Safaitic

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus: SIAM p. 196: first name ʾnʿm.
Commentary: Both ʾnʿm and ġṯ are clear on the stone. It is possible that s¹trt represents some form of military structure if hdy means the leader of a mliitary unit. It is also tempting to connect mṣr with the South Arabian mṣr ʿexpeditionary forceʾ — from the root ṣyr — (cf. JRWH p. 500). If this is so [and other instances of mṣr need to be checked] the mṣr ʾl whbʾl would presumably a unit drawn from the ʾl whbʾl comparable to the ms¹rt ʾl ʿmrt in M .... Finally WH seem not to have noticed the more lightly scratched lower lines of the last letter making a s² rather than the {f} they read. It is therefore possible that grs² is Gerasa/Jerash. It appears that the original form of the city's name was spelt with a /ś/ (see Elitzur 2004: 110, n. 16) which would have been been pronounced and and written with s² in Safaitic. The translation offered above is based on all these hypotheses and can be no more than a tentative suggestion. Note that immediately below this inscription is WH Greek 2 (=WH 1860) which reads ‘Wahballāh son of Ẓannʾēl son of Wahballāh’, and Wh 1861 by his daughter ʾʿḏq daughter of Wahballāh son of Ẓannʾēl.

Elitzur, Y. Ancient Place Names in the Holy Land: Preservation and History. Jerusalem: Magnes / Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004.
[WH] Winnett, F.V. & Harding, G.L. Inscriptions from Fifty Safaitic Cairns. (Near and Middle East Series, 9). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978.

Updated 16 Sep, 2024 by OCIANA