CSAI

Corpus of Central Minaic Inscriptions

Inscriptions in this corpus currently amount to more than 1,400. The texts of the “Madhabaean” period (here under the label of “period A”, ca. until the 6th c. BCE) are a precious source on the early history of the Jawf, whose territory was divided among Sabaʾ and the city-states of Nashshān, Kamna, Haram, Qarnā (Maʿīn), and (Inabbaʾ). Nashshān shows to have been the centre of the interactions among the political powers of the Jawf during this period: its intra muros sanctuary of the 8th century commemorates the representative gods of the main city-states of the Jawf and of the Sabaean kingdom, with their figures engraved on its pillars. This is the only certain case of divine representation in South Arabia. This artistically flourishing period has left its main attestations in beautiful objects like offering tables with gutter in shape of bull's head, decorated slabs, altars and thrones. The most peculiar stylistic Madhabaean feature is surely represented by the so-called decoration "of the Banāt ʿAd", a representation thick with natural elements and feminine divine figures incised on the pillars of some temples. The expansion of Maʿīn at the expenses of other city-states probably began in the late 7th century and was accomplished by the mid of the millennium. The Minaean kingdom imposed its royalty, pantheon and institutions, although inscriptions suggest some sporadic survival of local kingdoms in specific periods. A shift in the writing style is perceptible, not only in the graphic features but especially in the style and formulary of textual typologies. Dedications almost exclusively concern construction works commissioned by private citizens, magistrates or kings on the city gates (in Maʿīn) and walls (the immense documentation from Yathill/Barāqish), combining the two most common textual typologies. In the body of the text, sometimes specific events are commemorated: in M 247 the account of a commercial expedition abroad gives us one of the few external synchronisms that bind South-Arabian history to an absolute chronology. Legal and penitential texts are more common than in the previous period. The beginning of the Christian era has been recently proposed as the turning point for the disappearance of the kingdom of Maʿīn. Almost half of the Minaic documentation is constituted by the so-called "stelae with eyes", small funerary monuments with the name of the defunct and the sketch of eyes or human face. The majority of them come from illegal excavations, but some were found during the Italian excavations of the necropolis of Barāqish, proving that they can be considered Minaic texts.