The Tablet De Geest is a wooden tablet found in the

Hoq Cave The Hoq Cave or Hawk Cave () is a limestone cave on the island of Socotra, Yemen. It is located in the ''Hala'' spot approximately 1.5 km from the north-eastern coast, facing the open sea to northeast. Clearly visible from the sea, but diffi ...

on the island of

Socotra Socotra, locally known as Saqatri, is a Yemeni island in the Indian Ocean. Situated between the Guardafui Channel and the Arabian Sea, it lies near major shipping routes. Socotra is the largest of the six islands in the Socotra archipelago as ...

, in the

Guardafui Channel The Guardafui Channel (, ) is an oceanic strait off the tip of the Horn of Africa that lies between the Puntland region of Somalia and the Socotra governorate of Yemen to the west of the Arabian Sea. It connects the Gulf of Aden to the north ...

off the tip of the

Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...

. The wooden tablet measures 50x20 cm and contains writing in the

Palmyrene alphabet The Palmyrene alphabet was a historical Semitic alphabet used to write Palmyrene Aramaic. It was used between 100 BCE and 300 CE in Palmyra in the Syrian desert. The oldest surviving Palmyrene inscription dates to 44 BCE. The last surviving in ...

; it is dated to the third century AD, and is named for Peter De Geest, a Belgian caver who discovered it in 2000/2001.

References

{{reflist Palmyrene inscriptions 3rd-century inscriptions Caves of Socotra