| Language | Ancient South Arabian » Sabaic » Central Middle Sabaic | ||
| Alphabet | Ancient South Arabian | ||
| Script typology | Monumental writing | ||
| Writing technique | Incision | ||
| Measure of letters | 2.5 | ||
| Chronology |
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| Textual typology | Dedicatory text |
| 28 | Reading variant by Beeston 1976 b. |
| English | |
1 S¹ʿdtʾlb Ytlf, of the family Gdnm, kbr of 2 the Arabs of the king of Sabaʾ and Kinda and Mḏḥgm and Ḥrmm 3 and Bhlm and Zydʾl and all the Arabs of Sabaʾ and Ḥimyar 4 and the Ḥaḍramawt and Ymnt, dedicated to his Lord ʾlmqh, 5 Lord of ʾwm, a statue in bronze in praise of what 6 his Lord ʾlmqh, Lord of ʾwm, granted him when 7 their lord Ys¹rm Yhnʿm and his son 8 Ḏr ʾʾmr ʾymn, kings of Sabaʾ and ḏu-Raydān and the 9 Ḥaḍramawt and Ymnt, ordered them to go on an expedition and act as vanguard for their two lords Ys¹rm 10 and his son Ḏrʾʾmr, kings of Sabaʾ and ḏu-Raydān 11 and the Ḥaḍramawt and Ymnt, to the land of the Ḥaḍramawt and 12 their lord Ys¹rm ordered them to go on an expedition and lead them and 13 his contingent of the Arabs of Sabaʾ and Kinda and the inhabitants of Ns²qm 14 and Ns²n and they went on an expedition against ʿbrn and 15 all their contingent assembled and mustered, seven hundred and fifty soldiers 16 mounted on camels and seventy horsemen, and they went up from the watering place 17 and detached thirty camel-riders and four horsemen as vanguard; 18 and those vanguard soldiers came into conflict with seventy 19 soldiers mounted on camels from the Ḥaḍramawt that the king of the Ḥaḍramawt 20 had detached to capture prisoners for him from the expedition of (between) the two towns 21 and Mrb and their vanguard confronted them and some of their detachment 22 in ʾrk and killed and capture all of them and 23 among those Ḥaḍramis (only) one camel-rider and three 24 men on foot were safe, and then they rejoined their contingent and conducted a raid to 25 Dhr and Rḫyt and got killings and war prisoners 26 and civil prisoners and camels and bulls and cattle and sheep, 27 that satiated their contingent; then they went back and 28 waged war in the plain of the sources Ḫrṣm, and then they moved during the night 29 before dawn and the army of the Ḥaḍramawt confronted them with 30 three thousand five hundred soldiers mounted on camels and a hundred 31 and twenty-five horsemen and their commanders were Rbʿt, 32 of the families Wʾlm and Ḏhlm, and ʿlyn and ʾfṣy, of the family Gmn, 33 the mercenary captain of the camel-riders and the ʾqwl and the ʾkbrt of the Ḥaḍramawt, and 34 they (the Ḥimyarites) crushed them and killed eight hundred and fifty of them 35 in combat and captured among them ʾfṣy, the mercenary captain, and 36 Gs²m, the mercenary captain of the horsemen, and four hundred and seventy 37 soldiers (serving under) the ʾqwlm and the chieftains of the Ḥaḍramawt, and seized 38 forty five of their horses and slaughtered thirty horses 39 and seized one thousand and two hundred riding camels with their equipment, and 40 after that an alert was given to them that an offensive had been mounted against their force 41 by the contingent of Bs³ʾm so the one of Gdnm (the dedicant) went to their relief and with him there were thirty-five 42 horsemen from their contingent and they crushed them and captured all 43 their beasts for water transport and their riding camels and what escaped from them together with 44 Bs³ʾm were any swift riding horse and she-camel; all their contingent returned 45 in safety and sound and with glory and killings and war prisoners and captured animals 46 horses and riding camels and booty, and they praised the might and the 47 power of their Lord ʾlmqh, Lord of ʾwm, and may ʾlmqh continue to grant them 48 that they and their contingent return in safety and nobody 49 among their contingent were lost, even one man, from the expedition. By ʾlmqh. |
| 34, 42 | For a discussion of the meaning of s¹bṭ, see Beeston 1972: 543. |
| 34-35 | ḫms¹y w-ṯmn mʾtm bḍʿm: Stein notes that bḍʿm is in this case a noun "killed". |
| 37 | Beeston interprets the word nḥl as "mercenary chieftain", noting that it can be compared with Ar. naḥala "applicable to any mode of 'giving' [...] and giving a reward for services rendered, which I now suspect underlies the word" (Beeston 1973: 452-453). |
| 37-39 | w-hqḏw bn ʾfrs¹-hmw ḫms¹ w-ʾrbʿy ʾfrs¹m w-ʾblw ṯlṯy ʾfrs¹m: "and they took away of their horsemen, forty-five horsemen and they took possession of thirty horses and they saved one" (Jamme); but Beeston 1972: 538 notes that it would be more natural to see some kind of contrast betweent he two sentences and suggests that the sense is "they saved for themselves 45 of the enemy’s horses but destroyed 30 others", comparing ʾbl to Ar. ʾabala "strike with a stick". |
| 49 | w-ʾl tfqd bn gys²-hmw ġyr (ʾ)s¹m: Jamme considered this part of the sentence as still dependent from the verb ḫmr ("and [that] there would not be sought [in vain] among their troop even one man"). On the contrary, Ryckmans 1966: 494, followed by Beeston 1976, suggested that the verb tfqd is a perfect and the sentence states that only one man was lost. |
| Jamme 1962 a: 169-172 | Jamme, Albert W.F. 1962. Sabaean Inscriptions from Maḥram Bilqîs (Mârib). (Publications of the American Foundation for the Study of Man, 3). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. |
| Ryckmans, Jacques 1966: 494 | Ryckmans, Jacques 1966. Himyaritica 2. Le Muséon, 79: 475-500. |
| Beeston 1973: 452-453 | Beeston, Alfred F.L. 1973. Notes on Old South Arabian lexicography VIII. Le Muséon, 86: 443-453. |
| Beeston 1976 b: 52-53 | Beeston, Alfred F.L. 1976. Warfare in ancient South Arabian (2nd.-3rd. centuries A.D.). Qahtan. Studies in Old Arabian Epigraphy. 3. London: Luzac and Co. |
| Support type | Artefact » Base » Of statue with dedicatory inscription |
| Material | Stone |
| Measures | h. 156, w. 41-42, th. 35-21 |
| Link to object record |
| Modern site | Maḥram Bilqīs |
| Ancient site | ʾwm |
| Geographical area | Maʾrib |
| Country | Yemen |
| Archaeological context | Religious context: Temple of ʾlmqh Ṯhwn bʿl ʾwm |
| Link to site record |
| Jamme 1962 a: 169-172 | Jamme, Albert W.F. 1962. Sabaean Inscriptions from Maḥram Bilqîs (Mârib). (Publications of the American Foundation for the Study of Man, 3). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. |
| Sharafaddīn 1967: 83-87 | Sharafaddīn, Aḥmad H. 1967. Taʾrīḫ al-Yaman al-ṯaqāfī. Cairo. |
| Beeston 1976 b: 52-53 | Beeston, Alfred F.L. 1976. Warfare in ancient South Arabian (2nd.-3rd. centuries A.D.). Qahtan. Studies in Old Arabian Epigraphy. 3. London: Luzac and Co. |
| al-Iryānī 1990: 239-247 | al-Iryānī, Muṭahhar 1990. Fī-taʾrīḫ al-Yaman. Nuquš musnadiya wa-taʿliqāt. Ṣanʿāʾ: Markaz al-dirāsāt wa-l-buḥūṯ al-Yamanī. |