Dumaitic

Dumaitic [formerly called 'Jawfian'] is the alphabet used by the inhabitants of the oasis known in antiquity as Dūmat and later as Dūmat al-Jandal and al-Jawf. It lies in northern Saudi Arabia at the south-eastern end of the Wādī Sirḥān which leads up to the oasis of Azraq in north-eastern Jordan. According to the Assyrian annals, Adummatu (Dūmat) was the seat of successive queens of the Arabs, some of whom were also priestesses, in the eighth and seventh centuries BC. The Assyrian king Sennacherib carried off images of six of its deities, three of whom (ʿAtar-Samain, Ruḍay, and Nuhay) are mentioned in the Dumaitic and other ANA inscriptions. At present, only seven graffiti are known in the Dumaitic script which has features which clearly distinguish it from the other ANA alphabets. We know that the script was in use in the mid-sixth century BC because two Dumaitic graffiti by Bs¹rn king of Dūmat say that he was the ‘servant of Nbnʾd the king of Babylon’, which refers to Nabonidus (556–539 BC) who conquered north Arabia and lived at Taymāʾ between 552 and 543 BC.