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Pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions
Pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions are Epigraphy, inscriptions that come from the Arabian Peninsula dating to Pre-Islamic Arabia, before the rise of Islam. They were written in both Arabic and other languages, including Sabaic, Hadramautic language, Hadramautic, Minaic, Qatabanian language, Qatabanic. These inscriptions come in two forms: graffiti, "self-authored personal expressions written in a public space", and monumental inscriptions, commissioned to a professional scribe by an elite for an official role. Unlike modern graffiti, the graffiti in these inscriptions are usually signed (and so not anonymous) and were not illicit or subversive. 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 other tools. These inscriptions are typically non-portable (being lapidary) and were engraved (and not painted). Both graffiti and monumental inscriptions were als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epigraphy
Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the writing and the writers. Specifically excluded from epigraphy are the historical significance of an epigraph as a document and the artistic value of a literary composition. A person using the methods of epigraphy is called an ''epigrapher'' or ''epigraphist''. For example, the Behistun inscription is an official document of the Achaemenid Empire engraved on native rock at a location in Iran. Epigraphists are responsible for reconstructing, translating, and dating the trilingual inscription and finding any relevant circumstances. It is the work of historians, however, to determine and interpret the events recorded by the inscription as document. Often, epigraphy and history are competences practised by the same person. Epigraphy is a primar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient South Arabian Script
The Ancient South Arabian script (Old South Arabian 𐩣𐩯𐩬𐩵 ''ms3nd''; modern ar, الْمُسْنَد ''musnad'') branched from the Proto-Sinaitic script in about the late 2nd millennium BCE. It was used for writing the Old South Arabian languages Sabaic, Qatabanic, Hadramautic, Minaean, and Hasaitic, and the Ethiopic language Ge'ez in Dʿmt. The earliest instances of the Ancient South Arabian script are painted pottery sherds from Raybun in Hadhramaut in Yemen, which are dated to the late 2nd millennium BCE. There are no letters for vowels, which are marked by matres lectionis. Its mature form was reached around 800 BCE, and its use continued until the 6th century CE, including Ancient North Arabian inscriptions in variants of the alphabet, when it was displaced by the Arabic alphabet. In Ethiopia and Eritrea, it evolved later into the Ge'ez script, which, with added symbols throughout the centuries, has been used to write Amharic, Tigrinya and Tigre, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timna
Timna ( Qatabānic: , romanized: , ; ar, تمنع, translit=Timnaʿ) is an ancient city in Yemen, the capital of the Qataban kingdom; it is distinct from a valley in southern Israel that shares the same name. During ancient times, Timna was an important hub in the famous Incense Route, which supplied Arabian and Indian incense via camel caravan to ports on the Mediterranean Sea, most notably Gaza, and Petra. An American excavation of Timna took place in the 1950s chronicled in the book "Qataban and Sheba" by the American archaeologist Wendell Phillips. In 1962, an alabaster head and a block with writing was found by a British squadron on patrol. The head was discovered about 500 yards from the main wall and gate, the only structures left standing. The block was sent to the Manchester Museum Manchester Museum is a museum displaying works of archaeology, anthropology and natural history and is owned by the University of Manchester, in England. Sited on Oxford Road ( A34) at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qataban
Qataban ( Qatabanian: , romanized: , ) was an ancient South Semitic-speaking kingdom of South Arabia ( ancient Yemen) which existed from the early 1st millennium BCE till the late 1st or 2nd centuries CE. The kingdom of Qatabān was one of the six ancient South Arabian kingdoms of ancient Yemen, along with Sabaʾ, Maʿīn, Ḥaḍramawt, Ḥimyar, and Awsān. Geography Qatabān was centred around the Wādī Bayhān, and its capital was the city of Timnaʿ. The neighbours of Qatabān were Sabaʾ to the northwest and west, Awsān to the south, and Ḥaḍramawt to the east. At its maximum extent, Qatabān's territory extended from the Bāb al-Mandab in the southwest to the Ṣayhad desert to the north, and the western limits of Ḥaḍramawt to the east. History Prehistory The earliest human occupation in the region of Qatabān dates to around the 20th century BCE and consisted of a Neolithic population. The earliest settlements in the area of Qatabān are from 11th to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qatabanic
Qatabānian (or Qatabānic), one of the four better-documented languages of the Old South Arabian (or "Ṣayhadic") sub-group of South Semitic, was spoken mainly but not exclusively in the kingdom of Qatabān, located in central Yemen. The language is attested between 500 BC and 200 AD. Some two thousand inscriptions are known written in the Ancient South Arabian Monumental Script, known as ''Musnad''. These inscriptions are mainly found in Wādī Bayhān and Wādī Ḥārib to the south-east of Ma'rib, and from the plateau to the south of that area. Qatabanian inscriptions increase after the beginning of the 4th century BC when the Sabaeans ceased to dominate the area, and Qatabān became an independent kingdom. Qatabanian was spoken in an area across the kingdom of Qatabān as far as Jabal al-'Awd (near Zafar) in the southwest, and if we are to believe the Greek and Latin writers, it went as far as Bāb al-Mandab on the Red Sea. At the end of the 2nd century AD, Saba' and � ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hadhramaut
Hadhramaut ( ar, حَضْرَمَوْتُ \ حَضْرَمُوتُ, Ḥaḍramawt / Ḥaḍramūt; Hadramautic: 𐩢𐩳𐩧𐩣𐩩, ''Ḥḍrmt'') is a region in South Arabia, comprising eastern Yemen, parts of western Oman and southern Saudi Arabia. The name is of ancient origin, and is retained in the name of the Yemeni Governorate of Hadhramaut. The people of Hadhramaut are called Hadhrami. They formerly spoke Hadramautic, an old South Arabian language, but they now predominantly speak Hadhrami Arabic, which has much influence from Hadramautic. Etymology The origin of the name of ''Ḥaḍramawt'' is not exactly known, and there are numerous competing hypotheses about its meaning. The most common folk etymology is that the region's name means "death has come," from ar, حَضَر, ḥaḍara, lit=he came and ar, مَوْت, mawt, lit=death, though there are multiple explanations for how it came to be known as such. One explanation is that this is a nickname of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, north, Djibouti to the Djibouti–Ethiopia border, northeast, Somalia to the Ethiopia–Somalia border, east and northeast, Kenya to the Ethiopia–Kenya border, south, South Sudan to the Ethiopia–South Sudan border, west, and Sudan to the Ethiopia–Sudan border, northwest. Ethiopia has a total area of . As of 2022, it is home to around 113.5 million inhabitants, making it the List of countries and dependencies by population, 13th-most populous country in the world and the List of African countries by population, 2nd-most populous in Africa after Nigeria. The national capital and largest city, Addis Ababa, lies several kilometres west of the East African Rift that splits the country into the African Plate, Africa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Himyarite Kingdom
The Himyarite Kingdom ( ar, مملكة حِمْيَر, Mamlakat Ḥimyar, he, ממלכת חִמְיָר), or Himyar ( ar, حِمْيَر, ''Ḥimyar'', / 𐩹𐩧𐩺𐩵𐩬) (fl. 110 BCE–520s CE), historically referred to as the Homerite Kingdom by the Greeks and the Romans (its subjects being called Homeritae), was a polity in the southern highlands of Yemen, as well as the name of the region which it claimed. Until 110 BCE, it was integrated into the Qatabanian kingdom, afterwards being recognized as an independent kingdom. According to classical sources, their capital was the ancient city of Zafar, relatively near the modern-day city of Sana'a. Himyarite power eventually shifted to Sana'a as the population increased in the fifth century. After the establishment of their kingdom, it was ruled by kings from dhū-Raydān tribe. The kingdom was named Raydān.Jérémie Schiettecatte. Himyar. Roger S. Bagnall; Kai Brodersen; Craige B. Champion; Andrew Erskine; Sabine R. Hu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdom Of Saba
Sheba (; he, ''Šəḇāʾ''; ar, سبأ ''Sabaʾ''; Ge'ez: ሳባ ''Saba'') is a kingdom mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the Quran. Sheba features in Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions, particularly the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo tradition. It was the home of the biblical "Queen of Sheba", who is left unnamed in the Bible, but receives the names ''Makeda'' in Ethiopian and ''Bilqīs'' in Arabic tradition. According to Josephus it was also the home of the biblical " Princess Tharbis" said to have been the first wife of Moses when he was still a prince of Egypt. There are competing theories of where this kingdom was, with some placing it in either South Arabia or the Horn of Africa. Encyclopedia Britannica posits that the biblical narrative about the kingdom of Sheba was based on the ancient civilization of Saba (Old South Arabian: 𐩪𐩨𐩱 ''S-b-ʾ'') in South Arabia. This view is echoed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman who writ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Arabia
South Arabia () is a historical region that consists of the southern region of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia, mainly centered in what is now the Republic of Yemen, yet it has also historically included Najran, Jizan, Al-Bahah, and 'Asir, which are presently in Saudi Arabia, and the Dhofar of present-day Oman. South Arabia is inhabited by people possessing distinctive linguistic and ethnic affinities, as well as traditions and culture, transcending recent political boundaries. There are two indigenous language groups: the now extinct Old South Arabian languages and the unrelated Modern South Arabian languages, both members of the Semitic family. Etymology The term ''Yamnat'' was mentioned in Old South Arabian inscriptions on the title of one of the kings of the second Himyarite Kingdom known as Shammar Yahrʽish II. The term was probably referring to the southwestern coastline of the Arabian peninsula and the southern coastline between Aden and Hadramout. One ety ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decipherment
In philology, decipherment is the discovery of the meaning of texts written in ancient or obscure languages or scripts. Decipherment in cryptography refers to decryption. The term is used sardonically in everyday language to describe attempts to read poor handwriting. In genetics, decipherment is the successful attempt to understand DNA, which is viewed metaphorically as a text containing word-like units.Snustad, D. Peter, et al. (2016). ''Principles of Genetics''. Wiley, p.302 Throughout science the term decipherment is synonymous with the understanding of biological and chemical phenomena. Ancient languages In a few cases, a multilingual artifact has been necessary to facilitate decipherment, the Rosetta Stone being the classic example. Statistical techniques provide another pathway to decipherment, as does the analysis of modern languages derived from ancient languages in which undeciphered texts are written. Archaeological and historical information is helpful in verifying h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thamudic B
Thamudic B is a Central Semitic language and script concentrated in northwestern Arabia, with attestations in Syria, Egypt, and Yemen. A single Thamudic B text mentions the king of Babylon, which suggests that it was composed before the fall of the kingdom, in the middle of the 6th century BCE. Characteristics # The suffix morpheme of the prefix conjugation in the first person is ''-t'', as in Arabic and Northwest Semitic, as opposed to the ''-k'' of Ancient South Arabian Old South Arabian (or Ṣayhadic or Yemenite) is a group of four closely related extinct languages spoken in the far southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula. They were written in the Ancient South Arabian script. There were a number of oth ... and Ethiopic. # The dative preposition is ''nm'', which appears to be an assimilated form of an original *''lima''. # The consonant /n/ often assimilates to a following contiguous consonant, ''ʔṯt'', from earlier *ʾVnṯat and ''ʔt'', from earlier * �anta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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