BES20 2238

Bloomfield 2025: b- h- ʾk {ʾ}n {-h} for b- h- ʾbl <s¹>n{t}; trans.: 'By Whbʾl son of Mʿn and he spent the dry season at the thicket of trees {during which time [lit. the time of it]} he [helped] build the fort at al-Namārah and so O S²ʿʾqm [grant] security from enemies'

qyẓ b-h-ʾbl: In the editio princeps, the tightly spaced letters b and l in ʾbl ("camels") were mistakenly read as a single, malformed k. This created the otherwise unattested word h-ʾk 'the thicket.' The recording of the performance of seasonal activities 'with the camels' is well attested in Safaitic, e.g. WH 325 dṯʾ b-h-ʾbl 'he spent the season of the later rains with the camels'; MSTJ 6 s²ty b-h-ʾbl 'he spent the winter with the camels.' 

<s¹>n{t} bny mgdl h-nmrt: The glyph following ʾbl is also malformed. It most closely resembles a ḫ, although the bottom legs seem to form a circuit. In any case, it most certainly cannot be read as an ʾ as it is missing a shaft.  Context suggests correcting the carved letter to an s¹. The subsequent two letters are an n and an X-shaped t, the latter of which is executed almost identically to the clear t in nmrt. This yields a dating formula introduced by s¹nt 'year.' 

The same historical event is referenced in another inscription, AWS 2, which is dated s¹nt bny h-mgdl h-nmrt 'the year the tower at Namarah was built.' Because the present inscription appears to employ the same dating formula, bny is likely either a nominal form /benāy/ 'the building of' or a passive verb /boneya/, 'was built.' This interpretation implies that the author of this text did not actually participate in constructing the Roman fort at Namarah, but only that the fort's construction was an event well-known enough in the desert that at least two authors used it to date their inscriptions.