DASI

digital archive for the study of pre-islamic arabian inscriptions

Editor: Jérémie Schiettecatte


SITE INFORMATION

Ancient nameʾfqn
CountryYemen
Geographical areaDhamār
GovernorateDhamār
KingdomḤimyar
CoordinatesLatitude: 14° 28' 8"    Longitude: 44° 35' 2"    
Coordinates accuracyassumed
Type of siteModern site with reemployed inscriptions or artefacts
Deities(ʿṯtr) S²rqn
StructuresDwelling (indeterminate)
Light hydraulic structure (ex. canal, well)
Fortress
Rock inscriptions
LanguageSabaic
Location and toponomyLocation
Khirbat Afîq / Afq is a village located in the south-east of the Dhamâr plain, 21 km east-south-east of Dhamâr, 5 km north of Hakir.

Toponymy
It may be the ancient ʾfqn mentioned in RES 3946/2 as a hgr. This identification on the basis of similar names of place is uncertain.
Al-Hamdânî mentions a citadel, maṣnaʿat Ufayq, in the province of Dhamâr that may be identified to this village. To the south west of the village, the ruins of an inhabited area on a rocky promontory may correspond to the citadel mentioned by al-Hamdânî.
History of researchLate 2000s: visit and description by Kh. Numan (2012: 18).
General descriptionFive inscriptions were copied on site by Kh. Numan (2012:18, 132). One of them mentions the building of two cisterns around the 2nd-3rd century BC, as well as the presence of a house (bytn ḏ-ʾqs²ṭ).
Two additional inscriptions preserved in the Ṣanʿâʾ University Museum (A-20-263 and A-20-274) come from this site. One of them mentions the name of a deity called S²rqn (probably ʿṯtr S²rqn).
ChronologyThree inscriptions from this site may be dated according to their palaeography:
- A-20-263 is dated 5th-2nd century BC
- A-20-274 and Kh-Afq 1 are dated to the 2nd-3rd century AD.

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RELATED SITES

north of Ṣunʿa (Unknown)
north of Maṣnaʿat Mariya (S¹mʿn)

RELATED MATERIAL

Epigraphs in CSAI
Objects in CSAI

BIBLIOGRAPHY

al-Garoo 1986: 229-230al-Garoo, Asmahan 1986. Les antiquités du Yémen dans l'œuvre de al-Hamdânī. (PhD, Université Paris I).
al-Ḥiwālī 1967 a: 161al-Ḥiwālī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ 1967. Kitāb al-Iklīl li-lisān al-Yaman abī Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Hamdānī, al-ǧuzʾ al-ṯānī. Cairo.
al-Ḥiwālī 1967 b: 153al-Ḥiwālī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ 1967. Kitāb al-Iklīl li-lisān al-Yaman abī Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Hamdānī, al-ǧuzʾ al-ṯāmin. Cairo.
al-Ḥiwālī 1974: 226al-Ḥiwālī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ 1974. Ṣifa ǧazirat al-ʿArab, taʾlīf Lisān al-Yaman al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad al-Hamdānī. Riyāḍ: Manšūrāt Dār al-Yamāma li-l-baḥṯ wa-l-taraǧama wa-l-našr.
al-Ḫaṭīb 1948: vol. 10: 52al-Khaṭīb, Muḥibb ad-Dīn 1948. al-Iklīl min aḫbār al-Yaman w-ansāb Ḥimyar, taṣnīf lisān al-Yaman Abī Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Hamdānī, al-kitāb al-ʿāshir. Cairo.
Noman 2012: 18, 132Noman, Khaldon 2012. A Study of south Arabian Inscriptions from the region of Dhamār (Yemen). (PhD, Università di Pisa). 2016/05/10; https://etd.adm.unipi.it/theses/available/etd-08112012-151251/.