BES20 1601

Siglum
BES20 1601
Transliteration
l ʿṭs¹ bn ʿbṭ w mṣd h- frs¹ w rḍy ʿwr m- ʿwr ḏ yʿwr
Josef Bloomfield
Translation
By ʿṭs¹ son of ʿbṭ and the horseman subdued it [i.e. the camel] and Rḍy blind anyone who effaces [this inscription]
Josef Bloomfield

Interpretation

Commentary
The phrase mṣd h- frs¹ seems to refer to the rock drawing on the same face of the stone. This image depicts the capturing of a camel during a raid (see Macdonald 1990, Camel Hunting or raiding?). The human figure is on horseback. One possibility for mṣd might be Arabic maṣada “to subdue, render submissive” (Lane 2719c), i.e. “the horseman had subdued it [i.e. the camel]” with the assimilation of the enclitic pronoun -h to the definite article h-. In the curse formula, the author seems to have made a mistake by writing both m- ʿwr and ḏ yʿwr. Josef Bloomfield

Editio Princeps
OCIANA
Field Collector
BES20 team

Associated Signs
cartouche
Associated Drawings
Drawing of a horseman capturing a camel during a raid
Associated Inscriptions

  • [BES20] Inscriptions recorded during the Badia Epigraphic Survey 2020 and published here
Site
Wādī Mismā al-Sharqī, Al-Mafraq Governorate, Jordan
Date Found
2020
Download Images
Updated 02 Jul, 2025 by OCIANA

Cite this Site

Josef Bloomfield, 'BES20 1601,' ed. A. Al-Jallad and M.C.A. Macdonald, OCIANA, 02 Jul, 2025. https://ociana.osu.edu/inscriptions/45533. Accessed: 16 Mar, 2026.