The Rūwafa inscriptions (or Ruwwāfa inscriptions, Rawwāfa inscriptions) are a group of five

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 ...

–

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 ...

inscriptions known from the isolated Ruwāfa temple, located in the Hisma desert of Northwestern

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. ...

, or roughly 200 km northwest of

Hegra HEGRA, which stands for ''High-Energy-Gamma-Ray Astronomy'', was an atmospheric Cherenkov telescope for Gamma-ray astronomy. With its various types of detectors, HEGRA took data between 1987 and 2002, at which point it was dismantled in order ...

. They are dated to 165–169 AD. The inscriptions are numbered using Roman numerals, running from Inscriptions I to Inscription V. Two of the five inscriptions describe the structure as a temple and that it was constructed by the εθνος/''šrkt'' of

Thamud The Thamud ( ar, ثَمُوْد, translit=Ṯamūd) were an ancient Arabian tribe or tribal confederation that occupied the northwestern Arabian peninsula between the late-eighth century BCE, when they are attested in Assyrian sources, and th ...

in honor of the emperors

Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good ...

and

Lucius Verus Lucius Aurelius Verus (15 December 130 – January/February 169) was Roman emperor from 161 until his death in 169, alongside his adoptive brother Marcus Aurelius. He was a member of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty. Verus' succession together wit ...

. The Thamud tribe is otherwise well-attested to have existed in this region of Arabia from at least the 8th century BC. At the time of the composition of these inscriptions in the second century, northwestern Arabia was known as

Arabia Petraea Arabia Petraea or Petrea, also known as Rome's Arabian Province ( la, Provincia Arabia; ar, العربية البترائية; grc, Ἐπαρχία Πετραίας Ἀραβίας) or simply Arabia, was a frontier province of the Roman Empi ...

, a frontier province of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Medite ...

that had been previously conquered in 106 AD. The location of the inscriptions are curious, given that they are found at the southern extremities of the Roman province of Arabia with little else nearby, which has been described by some as the "last place" where a set of inscriptions recognizing the imperial authority of the Roman Empire would be found, though it adds to the significance of the inscription, indicating that this distant region of Arabia alongside the allied auxiliary unit still received attention from the emperors. It may have been that the empire was recruiting some of the inhabitants of the region into the army. Today, the inscriptions are housed at the

National Museum of Saudi Arabia The National Museum of Saudi Arabia () is a national museum located in the al-Murabba neighborhood of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Established in 1999,

Text

The following reading of the Ruwafa inscriptions are based on the 2015 edition by Michael MacDonald, which is at-present the most up-to-date edition of the Ruwafa inscriptions.

Inscription I

The first three lines of the inscription are originally in Greek.

1 For the eternal duration of the power of the most divine rulers of the world, the great Augusti, ''Armeniaci'', Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Lucius 2 uelius Verus,
. . . The ellipsis (, also known informally as dot dot dot) is a series of dots that indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning. The plural is ellipses. The term origin ...
''n'' 'atio''of the amud
. . . The ellipsis (, also known informally as dot dot dot) is a series of dots that indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning. The plural is ellipses. The term origin ...
has founded
. . . The ellipsis (, also known informally as dot dot dot) is a series of dots that indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning. The plural is ellipses. The term origin ...
with the encouragement 3
. . . The ellipsis (, also known informally as dot dot dot) is a series of dots that indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning. The plural is ellipses. The term origin ...
and through . . . Quntinus . . .].

The next two lines are in Nabataean.

4 For the well-being of .. MarcusAurelius Antoninus and Lucius Aurelius who .. This is the temple which the of Thamūd made, (that is) the commanders of their ''natio'', for the existence by their hand and the rworship ill be there or ever 5a And with the of ..t ˙ ...t ˙ ...Aventus ...and at their .e. the Thamūd’s or their leaders’.

Inscription II

The second inscription is entirely in Greek.

5b For the victory and the perpetual continuance of the emperors, the Caesars rcus uelius Antoninus 6 and Lucius Aurelius Verus, Aug(usti), Armeniaci, edci, Parthici Maximi, and their whole hou e the natio of the Thamūd ... 7 have completed the temple 8 and consecrated the sanctuary 9 .. of Cludius Modestus 10 .. Proprae(tor).

Inscription III

The third inscription is entirely in Greek.

. . . of the tribe of Thamūd of Rbtw they built this sanctuary

Inscription IV

The fourth inscription is entirely in Nabataean.

1 is the which , the priest of 2 , son of who is from Rbtw 3 for the god of ... ith?the 4 of lord ... the 5 ... ʿmnw.

Inscription V

The fifth inscription is too damaged to permit a coherent reading and the present location of the inscription, though photographs have been taken, is unknown.

Date

One of the figures named in the inscription,

died in 169, and so 169 serves as the ''terminus ante quem'' or the upper possible date of the inscription. The inscription also mentions a propraetorian named Claudius Modestus and the emperors are given the title ''Parthici Maximi'', which sets the lower possible date of the inscription at 165.

Discovery

The first to discover the inscriptions was

Alois Musil Alois Musil (30 June 1868 – 12 April 1944) was a Czech theologian, orientalist, explorer and bilingual Czech and German writer. Biography Musil was the oldest son born in 1868 into an poor farming family in Moravia (then Cisleithanian p ...

in 1910, who gave the site its name, Ruwafa. Though Muslim created molds of the inscriptions, their present whereabouts are unknown. In January of 1951, the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English ...

Arabist An Arabist is someone, often but not always from outside the Arab world, who specialises in the study of the Arabic language and culture (usually including Arabic literature). Origins Arabists began in medieval Muslim Spain, which lay on the ...

St John Philby Harry St John Bridger Philby, CIE (3 April 1885 – 30 September 1960), also known as Jack Philby or Sheikh Abdullah ( ar, الشيخ عبدالله), was a British Arabist, adviser, explorer, writer, and Colonial Office intelligence officer ...

revisited and rediscovered the inscriptions identified by Musil. But like Musil, his copies of the inscription did not survive. In 1966, Ruth Stiehl visited the site and took some photographs of the inscriptions, which were subsequently published in 1969. Additional photographs taken in 1968 by another group were turned over to

Józef Milik Józef Tadeusz Milik (Seroczyn, Poland, 24 March 1922 – Paris, 6 January 2006) was a Polish biblical scholar and a Catholic priest, researcher of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) through the deserts of Judea/Jordan, and translator and editor of th ...

who produced the first acceptable scholarly edition of the inscriptions.

Interpretation

The inscriptions assert that they were constructed by the Θαμουδηνω̂ν εθνος or the ''šrkt tmwdw'', identified as the nomadic Arabian tribe

who are attested as early as the 8th century BC. The meaning of some of the terms in the inscriptions has been subjected to varying debate. Michael MacDonald has proposed that εθνος and ''šrkt'' represent translations of the Latin ''natio'' to describe a military group or unit drawn from one or more groups. In the context of the inscription, it refers to a military unit drawn from members of the tribe of Thamud.

References

{{Reflist 2nd-century inscriptions 1910 archaeological discoveries Greek inscriptions Nabataean script Pre-Islamic Arabia Multilingual texts Pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions