KME 166

nḥmd: Perhaps the first person plural jussive of the root ḥmd 'to praise' (Arabic ḥamida). The 'praise' formula appears to be common in the Dhofari texts.

ʾyl: The object of praise, maybe a personal name, ʾayl 'deer' or more likely a divine name. It is possible that we are dealing with an animal totem or, more likely, a variant of the pan-Semitic deity ʾilu (Ugaritic ỉl, Akkadian ilum, Hebrew ʾēl). Is the present form a broken plural, meaning 'the gods' or a diphthongization of ʾil > ʾayl?

{n}{ʿ}bq: The first glpyh is distinct from the other two clear y's. The loop is much smaller and the tail faces towards the beginning of the inscription. A small stroke gives the appearance of a leg but this seems to be secondary and, moreover, does not form a Dhofari letter shape. If the reading y is correct, then the word would form short prefix conjugation (jussive) of the root bqy 'to remain', Mehri yəbḳā, Johnstone 1987, 47; Arabic yabqā, Lane, 237b. However, the fact that the glyph differs so clearly from the other two attested in the inscription should motivate us to understand it in other terms. It is possible that it is a ligatured n and ʿ, the latter is a smaller circle relative to the d. Ligatures are common when writing in ink. If this is the case, then we have a 1st person plural verb again but from the root ʿbq, 'to cling to,' 'to be attached to' (Lane, 1940a-b). This verb takes an object introduced by the preposition b-.

b- ḥy: The locative preposition b- 'in', 'with' and the adjective ḥy 'living', Arabic ḥayy- idem. The epithet ḥy 'living' is applied to Allāh in Safaitic (Al-Jallad 2025c; SIJ 293).

ḥmd: This is an adverbial phrase, compare to Ancient South Arabian ḥmdm with a similar syntax in clause final position.