Ha 11
By kind permission of The Ashmolean Museum
INSCRIPTION INFORMATION
| Language | Ancient South Arabian » Sabaic » Late Sabaic | ||
| Alphabet | Ancient South Arabian | ||
| Script typology | Monumental writing | ||
| Writing technique | Incision | ||
| Chronology |
| ||
| Textual typology | Prayer |
GENERAL NOTES
| The text is in Sabaic but with a suffix pronoun in -s¹, which led Beeston to talk of "Awsanite language", Pirenne of "pas purement hadramite", and Gajda "ḥaḍramawtique avec des influences sabéennes". We rather think that the text is in Sabaic with traces of Ḥaḍramitic. |
TEXT
1 Ḥgr bn
2 S¹lmt
3 l-ys¹mʿn R—
4 ḥmnn ṣlt-s¹
5 m
6 Mrṯdm bn
7 S¹lmt
8 Mrṯdm bn
9 S¹lmt
10 ḥg
| 2 | it is worthy of note that S¹lmt is an anthroponym well attested in the late Sabaic inscriptions from Yanbuq, a region formerly part of the Hadramitic kingdom. Such a datum can perhaps explain the linguistic peculiarities of the text (see the General remarks). |
| 5 | the engraver made a wrong start writing an m. He also repeated the name in lines 8-9, and made another wrong start at l.10 before ḥg. Because of all these epigraphic mistakes, Beeston assumes the last 5 lines were written by a different person (in his opinion the same Mrṯdm bn S¹lmt, apparently the brother of the former dedicant). |
TRANSLATIONS
| English | |
1 Ḥgr ibn 2 S¹lmt; 3 may R- 4 ḥmnn listen to his 5 prayer. 6 Mrṯdm ibn 7 S¹lmt 8 Mrṯdm ibn 9 S¹lmt 10 made the pilgrimage. |
OBJECT INFORMATION
| Deposit | Oxford, The Ashmolean Museum, Ash 1952.499 |
| Support type | Artefact |
| Material | Marble |
| Measures | h. 15, w. 18 |
| Link to object record |
ORIGIN AND PROVENANCE
| Modern site | Shabwa |
| Ancient site | S²bwt |
| Geographical area | Shabwa |
| Country | Yemen |
| Link to site record |
CULTURAL NOTES
It is interesting to find in a text of the monotheistic period the mention of such an old practise as the pilgrimage, referred to with the word ḥg since the archaic times.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
| Brown and Beeston 1954: 60-62 | Brown, W.L. and Beeston, Alfred F.L. 1954. Sculptures and Inscriptions from Shabwa. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society: 43-62. |
| Pirenne 1990: 86 | Pirenne, Jacqueline 1990. Les témoins écrit de la région de Shabwa et l'histoire. Jean-François Breton (ed.), Fouilles de Shabwa. 1. (Bibliothèque archéologique et historique, 134). Paris: Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner. [Institut français d'Archéologie du Proche-Orient] |
| Gajda 1997: 159-161 | Gajda, Iwona 1997. Ḥimyar gagné par le monothéisme (IVe-VIe siècle de l'ère chrétienne). Ambitions et ruine d'un royaume de l'Arabie méridionale antique. (Université d'Aix-en-Provence). |