BES20 1401
Text Information
- Siglum
- BES20 1401
- Transliteration
-
l y{h}{n}{ʾ}{l} {b}[n] {w}ny bn {y}ld bn ḫrṣ bn tm w ṣyḥ h lt ʾ{l}t ḥmy
Ahmad Al-Jallad
- Translation
-
By {Yhnʾl} {son of} {Wny} son of {Y}ld son of Ḫrṣ son of Tm and he called out: O Lt, goddess of protection!
Ahmad Al-Jallad
- Language and Script
- Safaitic 2
Interpretation
- Commentary
-
ʾlt: This is the unmarked term for a female superbeing, likely vocalized as ʾelat, the feminine of ʾel, 'goddess'. The term is attested frequently before toponyms, for example, ʾlt ʾss 'goddess of Usays' in C 101. See also SafDict, 44. While the masculine counterpart attests the stem expander h, ʾlh, the feminine substantive in Safaitic retains the original biradical stem to which the feminine ending t is directly added.
ḥmy: There is a stray mark following the y but it is too short to be read as an n. While Ḥmy is a common personal name, understanding it as such in the present context is difficult. This line of thinking would lead to the interpretation of ʾlt as 'scarcity,' forming a curse, but then one would expect a dative preposition before ḥmy. It seems better to understand the word as an abstract noun meaning 'protection', providing a new epithet of Allāt, 'goddess of protection.' This type of epithet can be compared to the construction nhy ʾlh ṯʿt 'Nuhay, god of salvation' in HU 789 e.
Ahmad Al-Jallad
- Editio Princeps
- OCIANA
- Field Collector
- BES20 team
- Name Distinguished
- First name in larger letters
- Technique
- Incised
- Direction of Script
- Boustrophedon
- Associated Signs
- cartouche
- Associated Inscriptions
- [SafDict] Al-Jallad, A. & Jaworska, K. A Dictionary of the Safaitic Inscriptions. Leiden: Brill, 2019
- [BES20] Inscriptions recorded during the Badia Epigraphic Survey 2020 and published here
- Site
- Wādī Mismā al-Sharqī, Al-Mafraq Governorate, Jordan
- Date Found
- 2020
- Subjects
- Genealogy, Prayer
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