CSAI

Corpus of Qatabanic Inscriptions

DASI
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Corpus of Qatabanic Inscriptions

The Corpus of Qatabanic inscriptions comprises in total more than 1,800 texts. It has been divided into three linguistic varieties: beside the inscriptions of the Central Qatabanic, the two small corpora of Marginal Qatabanic and Awsanite inscriptions has been created, because these documentations show several linguistic and cultural features that distinguish them from the Qatabanic language of the mainland.

This is the corpus home page. You can begin the consultation of the whole corpus by using the indexes and tools menu on the left or you can consult only one of its sub-corpora, when present, by choosing from the list below.
 

CORPORA BY LANGUAGE

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Corpus of Awsanite Inscriptions

The Awsanite corpus is a small epigraphic collection comprising some 30 inscriptions. They come from the region of the Awsan kingdom, located around the wādī Marḫa.
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Corpus of Central Qatabanic Inscriptions

This collection includes more than 1,700 inscriptions which represent the documentation on the history of the Qataban kingdom from the 7th century BC to the 2nd century AD. The two main cities of the Qatabanian reign, Timnaʿ and Ḥinu az-Zurayr, can be found in the two valleys of wādī Bayḥān and wādī Ḥarīb. Like other South Arabian corpora, Qatabanic documentation is very discontinuous and is concentrated in certain periods and under certain kings.
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Corpus of Marginal Qatabanic Inscriptions

This is a small corpus, made up of about 40 inscriptions, dating from the 1st to the 2nd century AD (period C and D). The texts come from the plateau regions south of Qataban, from places such as al-Miʿsāl, Qāniya, al-Ḥadd, Ḥaṣī and wādī Ḍuraʾ. In the Marginal Qatabanic, besides features typical of Qatabanic language, there are linguistic peculiarities, "something different" from proper Qatabanic.