An Open Access Online Journal on Arabian Epigraphy.
This article studies two unique Greek inscriptions from Wadi Salma in north-eastern Jordan. The first contains seven lines of Old Arabic written in Greek letters, and is our first secure example of Arabic prose written in Greek in the pre-Islamic period. The inscription sheds light on several grammatical features otherwise obscured by the consonantal skeletons of the Semitic scripts, such as the presence of case inflection, the realization of III-w suffix-conjugated verbs, and the vowel pattern of the prefix conjugation. The second inscription is written entirely in the Greek language, but contains a long section of prose which is thematically similar to what is typically found in the Safaitic inscriptions.
Graeco-Arabica Greek inscriptions Old Arabic Safaitic
This paper discusses four new Safaitic inscriptions from Jordan. Two of the funerary inscriptions shed light on the enigmatic grieving term trḥ, which could have both a passive meaning “perished” (lit. grieved for) and an active meaning “grieving intensely”.
Ancient North Arabian Funerary Inscriptions Safaitic
This paper publishes three new Safaitic-Greek bilingual inscriptions. One of them is the first to contain a translation of the Old Arabic prose into Greek. In addition to their decipherment and translation, the paper offers a few grammatical observations on the Arabic and Greek, and remarks on the growing evidence for Arabic-Greek bilingualism in the Harrah.
Bilingual inscriptions Graeco-Arabica Greek inscriptions Literacy Safaitic
This paper examines three Safaitic graffiti recently discovered during a survey of the Wādī Salmā area in the ḥarrah desert, north-eastern Jordan. While one of these texts consists exclusively of onomastica, the other two contain new references to the Ḥwlt tribe, one of which is in a prayer asking Dushara to avenge the Nabataeans against them. This provides further evidence of a conflict that took place between the Nabataeans and the Ḥwlt, a mysterious event that has recently been brought to attention by Sabri Abbadi. The decipherment of the texts is followed by an updated list of the documents referring to this war and by some remarks on its historical context. The question that is asked is whether it could have occurred during the Nabataean takeover of northern Arabia during the first century bc.
Ancient North Arabian Nabataean inscriptions Safaitic Northwest Arabia Tribes of Pre-Islamic Arabia
This paper aims to study new Islamic epigraphical material found in the Jordanian Badia. These inscriptions include one hadith and one inscription dating to the thirteenth century ce/eighth century ah. This study will highlight the relationship between the place where the inscriptions were found and the early Islamic mosque also said to be located there. The purpose of this article is to publish images of the newly-found inscriptions, give a translation, and provide some commentary. This article considers
the definition of Islamic inscription to be all Arabic inscriptions written since Islamic times.
Funerary Inscriptions Jordan Islamic Arabic inscription Hadith Mosque