BES26_HRN3 1

This inscription is carved by someone bearing what is, presumably, a Nabataean name. 

ʿbdlʿzy: While this name, lit. 'Slave of Al-ʿUzzay', is well attested in Nabataean, it occurs for the first time here in Safaitic (although mrʾʿzy is attested in WH 627). The deity al-ʿuzzay was not venerated by the nomads of the ḥarrah. The author may be of Nabataean background (on Nabataeans writing Safaitic inscriptions, see NEH 13) or perhaps he comes from a social group with close ties to the Nabataeans. The name is spelled phonetically in Safaitic rather than calquing Nabataean orthography, as indicated by the non-representation of the vocalic onset of the definite article al-. This, moreover, indicates that the final y represents a consonantal phoneme rather than a vowel, which would have gone unrepresented in Safaitic. The reconstrution of the pronunciation of this name would probably be */ʿabdo-l-ʿozzay/.

mrḫn: The root mrḫ generally refers to the act of annointing in Arabic but also signifies a certain shrub/tree that is particularly useful for firewood, called marḫun.  Freytag identifies it as Cynanchum viminale (also known as Sarcostemma viminale), a shrub belonging to the milkweed family (Lane, 2705). This plant, however, does not grow natively in the ḥarrah. It is possible that the term refers to some other shrub that grows in the area that is consumable by grazing animals. This issue requires further research. It is also possible to take the term as a toponym, but most toponyms do not carry the definite article.

• BES26_HRN3 2