Corpus of Early Sabaic Inscriptions (work in progress)
The chronological subdivision of the long Sabaean linguistic history adopted in CSAI follows the guidelines indicated by P. Stein, who locates the beginning of the "Middle Sabaic" period in the 4th – 3rd century AD. So, the Corpus of the Ancient Sabaic inscriptions in CSAI collects all the Sabaic texts of the early phase, which corresponds to the mukarribs' period.
Not only does it comprise the texts of the so-called period A, but also extends into the first part of the so-called period B set for the Qatabanic documentation. The corpus of the Ancient Sabaic inscriptions collects - up to now - nearly seven hundred texts, among which are worth mentioning those published in the CSAI Corpus of Inscriptions from the Yemeni Museums and Corpus of Inscriptions from the British Museum, and all the Ancient Sabaic texts edited in the CIS-Pars IV collection. The completion of this corpus is still work in progress.
The inscriptions recorded so far come from the many geographic areas part of the early Sabaic kingdom. Some texts are from the core of the kingdom (Mārib and Ṣirwāḥ), but the majority comes from the high-plateau North and South of Ṣanʿāʾ (the latter mainly from the regions of Dhamār and Baynūn, as their museums were partners of the CASIS project).
The documentation of the Sabaic towns of the Jawf is also impressive. This has been recently enlarged thanks to the digitization of the texts published in the catalogues of the pieces from the Jawf, hosted in the Ṣanʿāʾ National Museum.
Among the epigraphs, dedicatory and construction texts are counted, some of those attesting the building activity of the mukarribs on the town walls (in particular, the very ancient Lundin 16+CIH 367). A mention is needed to remember some long legal texts and the artistic quality of some artifacts.
The inscriptions recorded so far come from the many geographic areas part of the early Sabaic kingdom. Some texts are from the core of the kingdom (Mārib and Ṣirwāḥ), but the majority comes from the high-plateau North and South of Ṣanʿāʾ (the latter mainly from the regions of Dhamār and Baynūn, as their museums were partners of the CASIS project).
The documentation of the Sabaic towns of the Jawf is also impressive. This has been recently enlarged thanks to the digitization of the texts published in the catalogues of the pieces from the Jawf, hosted in the Ṣanʿāʾ National Museum.
Among the epigraphs, dedicatory and construction texts are counted, some of those attesting the building activity of the mukarribs on the town walls (in particular, the very ancient Lundin 16+CIH 367). A mention is needed to remember some long legal texts and the artistic quality of some artifacts.