BES19s 2

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Siglum: BES19s 2
Transliteration: l ḥyn fty ʾnʿm bn ʾbgr w wgm ʿl- s¹lmt bn ʾḫ w ʿl- tmlh bn ʾs¹d w ʿl- ġs¹n bn ʾbgr w ʿl- ʿmrn bn ʾnʿm w ḫbl ʾl ʿmrt w {r}ġm mny s¹nt ḥyb mġyr bn ḫr ḏ- ʾl rw{ḥ} l- nṣṣ b- h- bḥ{r}
Ahmad Al-Jallad
Translation: By Ḥyn slave of ʾnʿm son of ʾbgr and he grieved for S¹lmt son of ʾḫw and for Tmlh son of ʾs¹d and for Ġs¹n son of ʾbgr and for ʿmrn son of ʾnʿm and (all of) the lineage of ʿmrt were driven mad (by grief) because they (the aforementioned bereaved) were struck down by Fate the year Mġyr son of Ḫr of the lineage of Rwḥ cried out for Nṣṣ who was at sea
Ahmad Al-Jallad
Language and Script: Safaitic 3

Interpretation

Commentary: The verb ḥyb, a variant of ḥwb, is previously attested meaning 'to lament' or 'to invoke'. The present construction is comparable to KnGQ 5: ḥwb ʾl-rḍw ‘he cried out to Rḍw’, but with the use of the preposition l-. Nṣṣ is attested as a personal name but not as a divine name, so it is probably best to understand it as 'to cry out to/for'; see Al-Jallad and Jaworska 2019: 87b. It is also possible to understand nṣṣ as a Greek loanword νῆσος 'island', in which case our author would be lamenting for an island in the sea. While this translation may give one pause, longing for the sea, bḥr, is previously attested; see Al-Jallad 2022: 119.

Al-Jallad, A. The religion and rituals of the nomads of pre-Islamic Arabia: A reconstruction based on the Safaitic inscriptions. (Ancient Languages and Civilizations, 1). Leiden: Brill, 2022a.
[SafDict] Al-Jallad, A. & Jaworska, K. A Dictionary of the Safaitic Inscriptions. Leiden: Brill, 2019
[BES19s] Inscriptions recorded during the summer season of the Badia Epigraphic Survey 2019
[KnGQ] Knauf, E.A. More Notes on Ǧabal Qurma, Minaeans and Safaites. Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 107, 1991: 92-101.

Updated 10 Jan, 2025 by Ahmad Al-Jallad