Pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions are inscriptions that come from the Arabian Peninsula dating to before the rise of Islam. They were written in both

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...

and other languages, including

Sabaic Sabaean, also known as Sabaic, was an Old South Arabian language spoken between c. 1000 BC and the 6th century AD, by the Sabaeans. It was used as a written language by some other peoples of the ancient civilization of South Arabia, including the ...

, Hadramautic, Minaic,

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 langu ...

. These inscriptions come in two forms:

graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

, "self-authored personal expressions written in a public space", and monumental inscriptions, commissioned to a professional

scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...

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 A chisel is a tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge (such that wood chisels have lent part of their name to a particular grind) of blade on its end, for carving or cutting a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal by hand, s ...

, charcoal,

brush A brush is a common tool with bristles, wire or other filaments. It generally consists of a handle or block to which filaments are affixed in either a parallel or perpendicular orientation, depending on the way the brush is to be gripped duri ...

, or other tools. These inscriptions are typically non-portable (being lapidary) and were engraved (and not painted). Both graffiti and monumental inscriptions were also intended for public display. 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 The Nabataean script is an abjad (consonantal alphabet) that was used to write Nabataean Aramaic and Nabataean Arabic from the second century BC onwards.pre-Islamic Arabian monotheism was the prevalent form of religion by the fifth century. They have also played a role in

Quranic studies Qur'anic studies is the academic study of the Quran, the religious scripture of Islam. Schools Behnam Sadeghi and Mohsen Goudarzi classify scholars of Quranic studies into four groups: traditionalists, revisionists, skeptics, and neo-tradition ...

. 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. #

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 ...

(ASA): includes

, Minaic,

, and Ḥaḍramitic #

Ancient North Arabian Ancient North Arabian (ANA)http://e-learning.tsu.ge/pluginfile.php/5868/mod_resource/content/0/dzveli_armosavluri_enebi_-ugarituli_punikuri_arameuli_ebrauli_arabuli.pdf is a collection of scripts and possibly a language or family of languages (or ...

(ANA): includes all

South Semitic scripts The South Semitic scripts are a family of alphabets that had split from Proto-Sinaitic script by the 10th century BC. The family has two main branches: Ancient North Arabian (ANA) and Ancient South Arabian (ASA). The scripts were exclusive to Arabia ...

not covered by ASA, such as

Taymanitic Taymanitic was the language and script of the oasis of Taymāʾ in northwestern Arabia, dated to the second half of the 6th century BCE. Classification Taymanitic does not participate in the key innovations of Proto-Arabic, precluding it from ...

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 o ...

Nabataean The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; Arabic: , , singular , ; compare grc, Ναβαταῖος, translit=Nabataîos; la, Nabataeus) were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern Le ...

(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 such as bronze or rock. The minuscule form was created on perishable surfaces such as palm-bark or sticks and used for day-to-day purpose documents. The minuscule form was only discovered in the 1970s and was deciphered in the late 1980s. It is only known from

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 ' ...

. 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.

Languages

South Arabian

is the best attested language in South Arabian inscriptions, named after the

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 Ort ...

, 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 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 Homerit ...

. Some Sabaic inscriptions have also been found in

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 Er ...

, 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 Hadhramaut ( ar, حَضْرَمَوْتُ \ حَضْرَمُوتُ, Ḥaḍramawt / Ḥaḍramūt; Hadramautic: 𐩢𐩳𐩧𐩣𐩩, ''Ḥḍrmt'') is a region in South Arabia, comprising eastern Yemen, parts of western Oman and southern Sau ...

, or modern eastern Yemen.

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

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 ...

and the surrounding

necropolis A necropolis (plural necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek ''nekropolis'', literally meaning "city of the dead". The term usually im ...

. Minaic, known from the

Ma'in The Minaean people were the inhabitants of the kingdom of Ma'in ( Minaean: ''Maʿīn''; modern Arabic ''Maʿīn'') in modern-day Yemen, dating back to the 10th century BCE-150 BCE. It was located along the strip of desert called Ṣayhad b ...

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 Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

, 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 The Nabataean script is an abjad (consonantal alphabet) that was used to write Nabataean Aramaic and Nabataean Arabic from the second century BC onwards.Nabataean Aramaic Nabataean Aramaic is the Aramaic variety used in inscriptions by the Nabataeans of the East Bank of the Jordan River, the Negev, and the Sinai Peninsula. Compared to other varieties of Aramaic, it is notable for the occurrence of a number of loa ...

language, which was originally derived from

Imperial Aramaic Imperial Aramaic is a linguistic term, coined by modern scholars in order to designate a specific historical variety of Aramaic language. The term is polysemic, with two distinctive meanings, wider (sociolinguistic) and narrower ( dialectologic ...

. Over the centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into a

Nabataean Arabic Nabataean Arabic was the dialect of Arabic spoken by the Nabataeans in antiquity. In the 1st century AD, the Nabataeans wrote their inscriptions, such as the legal texts carved on the façades of the monumental tombs at Mada'in Salih, ancient Ḥ ...

intermediary, and this script evolved into

Paleo-Arabic Paleo-Arabic (or Palaeo-Arabic, previously called pre-Islamic Arabic or Old Arabic) is a pre-Islamic Arabian script used to write Arabic. It began to be used in the fifth century, when it succeeded the earlier Nabataeo-Arabic script, and it was ...

, 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 Cuneiform is a logo- syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedg ...

inscriptions). Pre-Islamic Arabic is called

Old Arabic Old Arabic is the name for the pre-Islamic Arabic language or dialect continuum. Various forms of Old Arabic are attested in many scripts like Safaitic, Hismaic, Nabatean, and even Greek. Classification Old Arabic and its descendants are class ...

. Old Arabic was mainly written down in these scripts: Safaitic,

Hismaic Hismaic is a variety of the Ancient North Arabian script and the language most commonly expressed in it. The Hismaic script may have been used to write Safaitic dialects of Old Arabic, but the language of most inscriptions differs from Safaitic ...

Nabataean Aramaic Nabataean Aramaic is the Aramaic variety used in inscriptions by the Nabataeans of the East Bank of the Jordan River, the Negev, and the Sinai Peninsula. Compared to other varieties of Aramaic, it is notable for the occurrence of a number of loa ...

, Nabataean Arabic, and Paleo-Arabic. Other scripts were used to write Arabic much more occasionally, including: the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

script, Ancient South Arabian scripts, and

Dadanitic Dadanitic is the script and possibly the language of the oasis of Dadān (modern Al-'Ula) and the kingdom of Liḥyān in northwestern Arabia, spoken probably some time during the second half of the first millennium BCE. Nomenclature Dadaniti ...

Ethiopic

Six inscriptions in Ethiopic ( Ge'ez) have been found in pre-Islamic Arabia. All six appear to have been written in South Arabia during the reign of

Kaleb of Aksum Kaleb (), also known as Saint Elesbaan, was King of Aksum, which was situated in modern-day Eritrea and Ethiopia. Procopius calls him "Hellestheaeus", a variant of grc-koi, Ελεσβόάς version of his regnal name, gez, እለ አጽ� ...

in the early 6th century, and it is Kaleb's speech that they all narrate. These inscriptions describe Kaleb's military invasion and conquest of Himyar and contain many religious references, including mentions of biblical figures like Jesus, Mary, and David, and several scriptural quotations (including

Isaiah Isaiah ( or ; he, , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "God is Salvation"), also known as Isaias, was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named. Within the text of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah himself is referred to as "th ...

22:22–23,

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived f ...

65:16 and 68:2,

Matthew Matthew may refer to: * Matthew (given name) * Matthew (surname) * ''Matthew'' (ship), the replica of the ship sailed by John Cabot in 1497 * ''Matthew'' (album), a 2000 album by rapper Kool Keith * Matthew (elm cultivar), a cultivar of the Chi ...

6:33, and with less certainty,

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book o ...

15:7).

South Arabia

Number and geography

There are 15,000 inscriptions known from pre-Islamic South Arabia. Of these, 7,500 have 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. Of all South Arabian languages,

is represented by the largest number of inscriptions (6,500). The single most important site or building from which South Arabian inscriptions have been discovered is the

Temple of Awwam The Temple of Awwam or "Mahram Bilqis" ("Sanctuary of the Queen of Sheba") is a Sabaean temple dedicated to the principal deity of Saba, Almaqah (frequently called "Lord of ʾAwwām"), near Ma'rib in what is now Yemen. The temple is situated so ...

, where over 800 have been found. Another 700 are known from the

Marib Marib ( ar, مَأْرِب, Maʾrib; Old South Arabian: 𐩣𐩧𐩨/𐩣𐩧𐩺𐩨 ''Mryb/Mrb'') is the capital city of Marib Governorate, Yemen. It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of ''Sabaʾ'' ( ar, سَبَأ), which some scholars ...

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 Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of ...

, northern Arabia,

, and even the Aegean island of

Delos The island of Delos (; el, Δήλος ; Attic: , Doric: ), near Mykonos, near the centre of the Cyclades archipelago, is one of the most important mythological, historical, and archaeological sites in Greece. The excavations in the island ar ...

, off the coast of

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wit ...

. The minuscule ''zabūr'' script, only known from Yemen, is attested in about 900 published inscriptions, with a large number still unpublished. The South Arabian corpus of inscriptions is more extensive than that of

Ugarit ) , image =Ugarit Corbel.jpg , image_size=300 , alt = , caption = Entrance to the Royal Palace of Ugarit , map_type = Near East#Syria , map_alt = , map_size = 300 , relief=yes , location = Latakia Governorate, Syria , region = ...

Phoenicia Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their his ...

Punic The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of the ...

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated i ...

, and

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

. It is second only in size to

Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform, early writing system * Akkadian myt ...

, 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.

Types

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.

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 Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was de ...

. 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

. 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 Ahmad Al-Jallad is a Jordanian-American philologist, epigraphist, and a historian of language. Some of the areas he has contributed to include Quranic studies and the history of Arabic, including recent work he has done on pre-Islamic Arabian insc ...

. 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 The Baal Cycle is an Ugaritic cycle of stories about the Canaanite god Baʿal ( "Owner", "Lord"), a storm god associated with fertility. It is one of the Ugarit texts, dated to c. 1500-1300 BCE. The text identifies Baal as the god Hadad, ...

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.

References

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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) {{Pre-Islamic Arabia, state=collapsed Epigraphy Inscriptions by region Pre-Islamic Arabia Pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions