Pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions

Pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions refer to inscriptions (writings inscribed on stone or other hard surfaces) from pre-Islamic Arabia, or the Arabian Peninsula prior to the origins of Islam in the early seventh century. They include inscriptions in both the Arabic and non-Arabic languages such as Sabaic, Hadramautic, Minaic, Qatabanic, and others.

Pre-Islamic inscriptions can be categorized into one of two types: graffiti, which are "self-authored personal expressions written in a public space", and monumental inscriptions, which are inscriptions commissioned to a professional scribe by a ruler or elite to serve an official role. Both served a public role. Unlike modern graffiti, the graffiti described in the study of pre-Islamic inscriptions are usually signed (as opposed to being anonymous) and were not used for an illicit or subversive purpose. Graffiti are usually just scratchings on the surface of rock, but both graffiti and monumental inscriptions could be produced by painting, or the use of a chisel, charcoal, brush, or the use of other methods. Inscriptions are typically lapidary (as opposed to portable) and engraved (instead of painted).

Pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions are an important source for the learning about the history and culture of pre-Islamic Arabia. In recent decades, their study has shown that the Arabic script evolved from the Nabataean script and that pre-Islamic Arabian monotheism was the prevalent form of religion by the fifth century. They have also played a role in Quranic studies. More than 65,000 pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions have been discovered. These inscriptions are found on many surfaces, including stone, metal, pottery, and wood. They indicate the existence of highly literate nomadic and settled populations in pre-Islamic Arabia. Most of these inscriptions are from North Arabia, where 50,000 inscriptions are known. The remaining 15,000 are from South Arabia.

Scripts

There are three scripts that were used to write down pre-Islamic inscriptions.

1. Ancient South Arabian (ASA): includes Sabaic, Minaic, Qatabanic, and Ḥaḍramitic
2. Ancient North Arabian (ANA): includes all South Semitic scripts not covered by ASA, such as Taymanitic or Thamudic B
3. Nabataean (which evolved into the Arabic script)

The ASA script was written in one of two forms, known as the monumental (musnad) and the minuscule (zabūr) form. The monumental form was created on hard surfaces (as proper inscriptions) such as bronze or rock. The minuscule form was created on perishable surfaces like palm-bark or sticks (examples were only discovered recently from South Arabia). More perishable surfaces were the ones utilized for day-to-day documents. Unlike ASA, ANA is not a homogeneous group. The designation refers to a wide number of scripts representing many languages which have yet to be properly classified and distinguished.

South Arabian

Sabaic is the best attested language in South Arabian inscriptions, named after the Kingdom of Saba, and is documented over a millennium. In the linguistic history of this region, there are three main phases of the evolution of the language: Late Sabaic (10th–2nd centuries BC), Middle Sabaic (2nd century BC–mid-4th century AD), and Late Sabaic (mid-4th century AD–eve of Islam). The final Sabaic inscription discovered is from the mid-5th century AD, during the final years of the Himyarite Kingdom. Some Sabaic inscriptions have also been found in Ethiopia, and these are classified as Ethiopic Sabaic. Sabaic and Arabic may have been mutually intelligible.

Hadramitic is attested in hundreds of inscriptions over a millennium, and is known from the region of Hadramaut, or modern eastern Yemen.

Qatabanic is more seldom attested, including on some pottery shards. Inscriptions in this language are found from the Qataban kingdom, principally at its capital Timna and the surrounding necropolis.

Minaic, known from the Ma'in kingdom of the Minaeans, is first documented in the 8th century BC. Although the primary site of attestation is at the kingdom, Minaic inscriptions have also been discovered in northwestern Arabia and Egypt, and this has been linked to a flourishing Minaean trade.

Nabataean and Arabic

In the Nabataean kingdom, both Aramaic and Arabic were used as spoken languages. The Nabataean script was used to write down the Nabataean Aramaic language, which was originally derived from Imperial Aramaic. Over the centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into a Nabataean Arabic intermediary, and this script evolved into Paleo-Arabic, which is when the Arabic script entered its recognizably current form in the pre-Islamic era.

Arabic was spoken as early as the early 1st millennium BC attested by cuneiform inscriptions). Pre-Islamic Arabic is called Old Arabic. Old Arabic was mainly written down in these scripts: Safaitic, Hismaic, Nabataean Aramaic, Nabataean Arabic, and Paleo-Arabic. Other scripts were used to write Arabic much more occasionally, including: the Greek script, Ancient South Arabian scripts, and Dadanitic.

South Arabian inscriptions

Statistics and geography

There are 15,000 inscriptions known from pre-Islamic South Arabia. Of these, 7,500 have already been digitized into the Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions (CSAI) project. In total, the number of published inscriptions has been given as 10,000 or over 12,000. Then, of all South Arabian languages, Sabaic is represented by the largest number of inscriptions (6,500). The single most important site from which South Arabian inscriptions have been discovered is the Temple of Awwam. This building has produced over 800 inscriptions alone. Another 700 are known from the Marib oasis. The number of inscriptions continues to grow rapidly: in the Jawf in South Arabia, the corpus of known inscriptions doubled roughly between the years 2000 to 2020, with over a thousand new ones coming to light.

Geographically, the vast majority of these inscriptions come from modern-day Yemen. However, some inscriptions composed in the Ancient South Arabian script also come from southwestern Oman, northern Arabia, Ethiopia, Egypt, and even the Aegean island of Delos, off the coast of Greece.

The South Arabian corpus of inscriptions is more extensive than that of Ugarit or Phoenicia in Punic, Aramaic, and Hebrew. It is second only in size to Akkadian, but remains behind in the field of Semitic studies due to a lack of accessible tools. These inscriptions suggest a copious literature once existed in the area, but it has not survived, likely because it was written on perishable materials.

Categorization

Most South Arabian inscriptions are short or fragmentary. The largest number are graffiti. On the other hand, several thousand more elaborate inscriptions. The longest of them, J 576+577, has over 1,300 word units. The longer inscriptions are characterized by their purpose and the formulae they utilize. They can be divided into the following categories:

• Dedicatory or votive inscriptions. Number around 2,500, half are in Sabaic. The content regularly has the scheme PN hqny GN X, "PN has dedicated to (the deity) GN (the object) X". The formula is often followed by circumstantial content with a lengthy historic account concerning the cause surrounding the erection of the structure that the inscription is associated with. They are a major source for the reconstruction of the political history of South Arabia.
• Building inscriptions. Number about 1,000, with three fourths in Sabaic. The building inscriptions employ the formula bny or brʾ, meaning "(NN) has built".
• Public announcements of decrees and legal affairs. Numbering about 400 (70% Sabaic). Content is usually relates to social and religious life.
• Commemorative inscriptions. Fewer in number than any other category. Among these are some of the longest "Res gestae", or things done types of accounts, produced by kings to document what was accomplished during their reign.

Social, cultural, and political context

All South Arabian languages, despite their linguistic differences, used a common monumental, alphabetic script with 29 consonants. The monumental script was designed to use simple geometric forms and be placed on texts for public display, mostly in sanctuaries, but also on house walls, altars, wells, irrigation works, and prominent places on rock outcrops. This public display, in turn, greatly shaped the content that was placed onto them. These texts can be extremely long and detailed and lay the foundations for understanding the history of the South Arabian kingdoms: they tell us about the organization of their polities, their economic and legal foundations, they offer an understanding of the social groups in the region, including kings, tribal leaders, functionaries, tribal members, and client associations. They document the gods worshiped and represent an invaluable source for the history of political events and the topography. The minuscule script, by contrast, was written on palm leaf ribs and other types of wood. They offer little resemblance to the monumental scripts. About 870 of them have been published, but only 350 translated, as the individual letters are ambiguous and the vocabulary remains mostly unknown. Minuscule scripts were not intended for public display, but instead for rapid notation and archiving, as their content shows. They pertain to everyday legal and economic life. They include certificates, receipts, writing exercises, and some cultic records. The minuscule inscriptions are comparable to Mesopotamian clay tablets or Egyptian papyri. The fact that they were written on wood makes it possible to chronologically organize them using radiocarbon dating. The beginning of the study of the minuscule script is very recent, having been deciphered in the 1980s.

Poetry

To date, eight pre-Islamic poems are known from inscriptions discovered in Yemen. Summarized by Daum, Abdullah, and Mutahhar ibn al-Iryani:

"Six have been published: ZI 11 from Mārib, the Hymn to the Sun from Qāniya (dated by Stein to the late first century AD), a building text from Wadi Šurjān—so pronounced, not Širjān (van Lessen 24 = Jamme 2353), a cursive text from the Munich collection (X. BSB 187—Stein, 2010, p. 607ss.), an inscription from Ḫawlān al‐ Ṭiyāl (MS‐Šiǧā’ 2), engraved together with other inscriptions that deal with the ritual hunt, and inscription MA 16 from Mārib (Multhoff, 2021, p. 315s.). Two more texts from the Awām temple, discovered in 2004 by the AFSM, numbered MB 2004 I‐95 and MB 2004 SI‐8 (personal communication of Mohammed Maraqten), remain unpublished. The poems span the period from the fifth or third century BC to the third century AD."

One of the earliest is the Hymn of Qāniya, a first century poem addressed to the goddess Shams that is 27 lines long. Every line in the poem ends in the rhyme -hk. Another poem comes from a Middle Sabaic vote inscription Zaid Inan 11 (ZI 11) from Marib. A rock inscription VL 24 = Ja 2353 from Wadi Shirjān contains a rhymed poem 10 lines long. The first line is introductory, followed by nine lines of text.

Beyond South Arabia, a Safaitic poem has been discovered by Ahmad Al-Jallad. According to Al-Jallad, the poem is six lines long and is a war song. Aside from this text, only one other literary composition is known in Safaitic, which is a fragment of the Baal Cycle.

Limitations

Certain challenges exist in studying pre-Islamic Arabia with inscriptions. First, not all communities expressed themselves through a culture of inscribing their writings on rock. Second, the content of inscriptions is often formulaic. Nevertheless, many formula were used and the phrasings become formula (widely employed) because they help encode the beliefs and attitudes of the authors. Third, inscriptions can be destroyed by weather or human activity. Therefore, inscriptions known today may not be a full representation of those originally created.

See also

• Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry

References

Sources

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External links

• DASI (Digital Archive for the Study of pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions)
• DiCoNab (The Digital Corpus of the Nabataean and Developing Arabic Inscriptions)
• OCIANA (Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia)