Arabian Epigraphic Notes

An Open Access Online Journal on Arabian Epigraphy.

New Epigraphica from Jordan I: a pre-Islamic Arabic inscription in Greek letters and a Greek inscription from north-eastern Jordan

Abstract

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.


Keywords

Graeco-Arabica Greek inscriptions Old Arabic Safaitic

A selection of Safaitic inscriptions from the Mafraq Antiquities Office and Museum

Abstract

This paper provides the photographs, readings, and interpretations of sixty-one Safaitic inscriptions from the Mafraq Museum’s collection.


Keywords

Ancient North Arabian Old Arabic Safaitic

The development of the triphthongs in Quranic and Classical Arabic

Abstract

The original Proto-Semitic triphthongs have developed in a variety of ways in the history of Arabic. Employing data from Old Arabic and the Quranic Consonantal Text, this paper examines the developments of these triphthongs in Classical Arabic and the language of the Quran. It describes the development in hollow and defective roots and shows that Quranic Arabic developed a new long vowels /ē/ and /ō/ in positions where Classical Arabic merges triphthongs with *ā.


Keywords

Nabataeo-Arabic Old Arabic Quranic Consonantal Text Triphthongs Historical linguistics

New dated inscriptions (Nabataean and pre-Islamic Arabic) from a site near al-Jawf, ancient Dūmah, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This article publishes eighteen inscriptions: seventeen in the Nabataean script and one in the pre-Islamic Arabic script, all from the area of al-Jawf, ancient Dūmat al-Jandal, in north-west Arabia. It includes the edition of the texts as well as a discussion of their significance. The pre-Islamic Arabic text, DaJ144PAr1, is dated to the mid-sixth century ad. It is important because it is the first text firmly dated to the sixth century ad from north-west Arabia. The Nabataean texts are interesting because they are dated to the beginning of the second century ad and they mention both cavalrymen (Nabataean pršyʾ) and a centurion (Nabataean qnṭrywnʾ).


Keywords

Nabataean inscriptions Old Arabic Roman army Dumah Saudi Arabia