The Nabataeans against the Ḥwlt – once again. An edition of new Safaitic inscriptions from the Jordanian Ḥarrah desert

Norris, Jérôme; Al-Manaser, Ali (2018)

Article / Letter to editor

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.

• Nabataean inscriptions
• Safaitic
• Ancient North Arabian
• Tribes of Pre-Islamic Arabia
• North-west Arabia

• All authors: Norris, Jérôme; Al-Manaser, Ali
• Date: 2018
• Pages: 1 - 24
• Publisher: Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Arabia (LeiCenSAA)