The Safaitic rock art of the North Arabian basalt desert is a unique and understudied material, one of the few surviving traces of the elusive herding societies that inhabited this region in... Show moreThe Safaitic rock art of the North Arabian basalt desert is a unique and understudied material, one of the few surviving traces of the elusive herding societies that inhabited this region in antiquity. Yet little is known about this rock art and its role in the desert societies. Why did these peoples make carvings in the desert and what was the significance of this cultural practice? What can the rock art tell us about the relationship between the nomads and their desert landscape? This book investigates these questions through a comprehensive study of over 4500 petroglyphs from the Jebel Qurma region of the Black Desert in north-eastern Jordan. It explores the content of the rock art, how it was produced and consumed by its makers and audience, and its relationship with the landscape. This is the first-ever systematic study of the Safaitic petroglyphs from the Black Desert and it is unique for the study of Arabian rock art. It demonstrates the value of a material approach to rock art and the unique insights that rock art can provide into the relationship between nomadic herders and the wild and domestic landscape. Show less
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... Show moreThis 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. Show less
This paper edits twenty-one previously unpublished Ancient North Arabian (Safaitic) inscriptions discovered in 2015 in Jordan, one of which mentions the Nabataean Damaṣī.
This paper contains updates to the grammar sections of An Outline of the Grammar of the Safaitic Inscriptions (Brill SSLL, 2015) based on newly published and unpublished inscriptions, and a... Show moreThis paper contains updates to the grammar sections of An Outline of the Grammar of the Safaitic Inscriptions (Brill SSLL, 2015) based on newly published and unpublished inscriptions, and a supplement to the dictionary with nearly 200 new entries. Show less
This paper aims to study a new Safaitic inscription documented from the eastern Jordanian Badiyah. The inscription is written in the square-script by a member of the lineage of ʿmrt and includes a... Show moreThis paper aims to study a new Safaitic inscription documented from the eastern Jordanian Badiyah. The inscription is written in the square-script by a member of the lineage of ʿmrt and includes a rare expression of "longing". Show less
This article investigates the pre-Islamic name ʿAbd al-Asad and the alleged lion-god in the Arabic tradition through the onomastic evidence of two ancient Semitic languages (Eblaite and Amorite) as... Show moreThis article investigates the pre-Islamic name ʿAbd al-Asad and the alleged lion-god in the Arabic tradition through the onomastic evidence of two ancient Semitic languages (Eblaite and Amorite) as well as the ancient epigraphic languages of Arabia. The study suggests that the name has no association with the god Yaġūṯ under the form of a lion. Alternatively, it reflects either an ‘archaic’ astral cult related to Leo or a traditional namegiving practice known especially in the northern parts of the Arabian Peninsula. According to this practice, the individual, whether being a child or an adult, could have been named ʿAbd-of-X after the person who took care of him (i.e. a patron) or the tribe he belonged to. Show less
This article reads and interprets a Safaitic inscription discovered in Wadi Ram that mentions a conflict between the Ḥwlt, a North Arabian tribe, and the Nabataeans.
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... Show moreThis 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. Show less
