KRS 995

Siglum: KRS 995
Transliteration: l whblh bn ġyrʾl bn ʿbdhʾktb bn ġyrʾl bn rwḥ bn ḥnnʾl bn ʿdy w tʾmr h- s²ḥṣ f h lt w h gdḍf w ds²r w h bʿls¹mn w ---- ʾlh ġnyt w ʾs²rq s¹nt {n}g{y} mty hdy f h ṣr s¹lm w nqʾt b- wdd -h yḫbl h- ḫ{{ṭ}}{{ṭ}}
Translation: By Whblh son of Ġyrʾl son of ʿbdhʾktb son of Ġyrʾl son of Rwḥ son of Ḥnnʾl son of ʿdy and the dearth was widespread and so O Lt and O Gdḍf and O Bʿls¹mn and ---- ʾlh let there be abundance and he travelled to the inner desert the year Mty was appointed commander and so O Ṣr may he be secure and may whoever spoils the {carving} be thrown out of the grave by his loved one

Interpretation

Commentary: There are three lines before the deity's name ʾlh which seem to be quite clear although there are some extraneous lines across them but it is difficult to know how to explain them. It is possible the author started to write the name ʾlh and then abandoned the first attempt and wrote the name again. There is also a line curving round some of the letters in the middle of the inscription. At the end it looks as though the author has written a b, h, and b and then put a line across the two vertical lines to form a ṭ. There is then a l and h and it seems most likely that they were a mistake and and a vertical line has been added to the h to form a partial ṭ with the line of the prong of the h forming a crossbar. Contra Al-Jallad 2015: 258, the divine name read hear as ṣr is clear and it is not possible to read it as {ʾṯʿ}.

Inscriptions recorded by Geraldine King on the Basalt Desert Rescue Survey in north-eastern Jordan in 1989 and published here
Al-Jallad, A.M. An Outline of the Grammar of the Safaitic Inscriptions. (Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, 80). Leiden: Brill, 2015.