Esk. 272

Siglum
Esk. 272
Alternative Sigla
Kootstra 2016: 100
Transliteration
nʿml / b lbd
hrg / ddn{ / }ʾl wnʿ
ṯġf h- kdwrt / {f} hl
k / {ʾ}ṯr -h / ḥwl
OCIANA
Translation
By / son of Lbd Nʿml son of Lbd,
destroyer of Dedan, of the lineage of Wnʿ
he slaughtered and bled the Kdwrt {and then}
he went in its {footsteps} [i.e. he pursued it] for a year [or: with great force]
OCIANA
Language and Script
Taymanitic

Interpretation

Apparatus Criticus
TEXT Line 1. Eskoubi (line 2): nʿml b ldb as line two, after ʾl wnʿ. Line 3. Eskoubi: ḍġbh bdwlt fhl rather than ṯġf h- kdwrt; Kootstra: s³ġ {b} rather than ṯġf. Line 4. Eskoubi: k bṣs²r -h for k {ʾ}ṯr -h; Kootstra: b{ʾ}ṯr -h for {ʾ}ṯr -h. TRANSLATION Line 1. ʾl wnʿ, Eskoubi: personal name. Line 2. hrg, Eskoubi: personal name. Line 4. ḥwl, Eskoubi: adverb of time.
Commentary
See Macdonald, in press g, Appendix 1. The name nʿml has been found once before in Taymanitic (JSTham 450). Lbd is known from Dadanitic and Safaitic. This is the first occurrence of the lineage name wnʿ. We have interpreted the title hrg ddn as *hārig dadan “Destroyer of Ddn”, on the basis of the root H-R-G in Arabic and North-West Semitic, one of whose basic meanings is “to slaughter” (see, for instance, Arabic harj “confusion, disorder, slaughter”), Hebrew hārag "to kill, slaughter". The third line is the most difficult to interpret. Tentatively, we would relate ṯġb to Arabic ṯaġaba “to slaughter and bleed (an animal)” taking it as a contemptuous metaphor for killing someone. The next six letters presumably give the name or title of the person he killed. The h could be the definite article but it is difficult to interpret what follows. The w cannot represent a vowel in the Taymanitic orthography and so h-kdwrt would make a curious name. The third person singular enclitic pronoun, –h, after ʾṯr in the next line must refer back to h-kdwrt and so precludes reading it as two names, hkd w rt. Although it is much longer than the others, the vertical line following the t can only be a word-divider, since no letter in the Taymanitic alphabet has this form. We have taken the following letter as a f, though it could equally be a ʿ, these two letters having very similar shapes in Taymanitic. The basic meaning of the root H-L-K in the Semitic languages is “to go”. It is interesting that the preposition b is separated from the following word by a word-divider. The next word ʾṯr-h “his traces, footsteps” is clear. Although the “horns” of the ʾ have been joined to form a circle, the letter can only be a ʾ since this is not a form which ṣ takes in Taymanitic. The final word is ḥwl which we would suggest represents something equivalent to Arabic ḥawlan “for a year”, or “with great force”. For another text ending in ḥwl see Esk 020.

Editio Princeps
OCIANA

Associated Signs
(1). an Ancient South Arabian z above the text. (2). a ṣ (circle with straight horns below ʾṯr-h in line 4

  • [Esk] Eskūbī [Eskoubi] Ḫ.M. Dirāsah taḥlīliyyah muqāranah li-nuqūš min minṭaqah (rum) ǧanūb ġarb taymāʾ. [English title: An Analytical and Comparative Study of Inscriptions from “Rum” region, South West of Tayma. Riyāḍ: wazīrat al-maʿārif, waqālat al-āṯār wa-l-matāḥif, 1999. pp 359–362
  • Kootstra, F. The Language of the Taymanitic Inscriptions and its Classification. Arabian Epigraphic Notes 2, 2016: 67–140
  • Macdonald, M.C.A. Catalogue of the Inscriptions discovered in the Saudi-German excavations at Taymāʾ 2004–2015. With contributions by A. Hausleiter, F. Imbert, H. Schaudig, P. Stein, F. Tourtet, and M. Trognitz . Oxford: Archaeopress, 2020.
Site
Al-Buwayb al-Ṣanāʿī, south-west of Taymāʾ, Tabūk Province, Saudi Arabia
Current Location
In situ
Subjects
Genealogy, Lineage, Place-name, Time
Old OCIANA ID
#0040126
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Updated 08 Jan, 2025 by OCIANA

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OCIANA,. 'Esk. 272.' OCIANA. 08 Jan, 2025. https://ociana.osu.edu/inscriptions/784. Accessed: 19 Jan, 2026.